4/6/54
DEIMOS DUST
My alarm suddenly turned on, and in a response that’s been practiced and mastered over years of diligence and muscle memory, my arm swung down, slamming on the alarm, silencing it for the morning. Or, forever and I’ll have to buy a new one. Again.
Swinging legs first out of bed, I quickly went about my morning routine: making the bed, taking a quick shower, getting dressed, checking the calendar for any important dates, and finally, going to the kitchen to make breakfast.
While I made the waffle batter, I heard my new permanent roommate getting up and going through his routine. That brought to mind the conversation last night and the emotions that followed. I’ve thrown my hat in with him, and now I’m stuck with my choice. I’m worried. Did I make the right choice? Should I’ve turned him in? Is it too late?
Breathing out shakily, I reinforced my will. What’s done is done, I’ve done what I think is right, even if it is going against everything I’ve stood for and believed in for the past six years. There’s no going back now. There’s no use worrying about what-ifs.
Absorbing myself in thought, I barely noticed the small click of Alexander’s opening door.
Tilting my head to face him, I asked, “Alexander, did you sleep well?”
He froze momentarily, most likely a reaction from his real name being called, before he smiled and answered, “Never slept better.”
Nodding, I returned back to the waffles, thinking about what the plan was today.
There’s no training, so that’s good. I’d already been through too many training periods, and this one wasn’t even necessary. Now, though, Alexander actually has a job, so I’ll need to help him get that all sorted out. We’ll also need to get him some stuff for the job: tools, weapons, armor.
Alright, in that case, I’ll take him down to the bounty hunter’s office, get him signed up, accompany him on his first job, and then see how he does.
ALEXANDER GALDUR
Deimos was already up and making breakfast by the time I woke. A sweet scent permeated through the air, and saliva was building up in my mouth as I walked out of the shower, remembering catching a glimpse of a waffle maker when I greeted him earlier. I lost my appetite when I saw myself in the mirror, ugly scars covering my skin, but still, the smell was heavenly.
Once I was out of the bathroom, dressed in my blue shirt and gray sweatpants, I walked out and enjoyed a delicious breakfast made by Deimos. We ate in silence, but not the uncomfortable kind; we’re both pretty quiet people, so this is the silence when you’re close enough with a person for it to not be awkward.
After finishing up the chores around the house, we sat down in the living room and had a talk.
“I’ll take you to the bounty hunters’ office. We’ll get you set up with a job, alright?” Deimos stated while shifting his legs around to get comfortable.
“Okay, so when are we going?” I asked.
“Now. Come on, it’s best we get a few things before we begin.”
----------------------------------------
“So, why do they have a shop like this in the mall?” I asked as we browsed the numerous tools of murder on the shelf. After riding to the city, parking the car, we went to the mall, and for some reason unknown to me, there was a shop here that had a shop called “Hunter’s Horde.”
It was a shop full of various weapons: guns, swords, maces, knuckle dusters. If you name it, they have it organized and cataloged in a neat and efficient system. Even after all the weapons of minor to moderate destruction, there was weird gadgets, tools, and armor that offered quality-of-life improvements, kept you from being stabbed in sixteen different places, or in the case of “Ryman’s Bedazzled Lockpick,” would let you pick any lock as long as it had gems on it.
“Because this mall is quite close to the bounty hunters’ office, so the location catches any bounty hunters that need to get repairs done or stuff made.”
“Still, in a mall?” I mumbled, scanning the shelves. While looking through the massive amount of various pieces of equipment, my eyes wandered to the price tag, and I nearly had a heart attack.
“$6500!?”
“Christ! Don’t suddenly shout like that; you startled me!” Deimos said as he held his hand over where his heart would be.
“Deimos, it’s $6500: of course I would shout!” I stated, gesturing at the sword in question for emphasis.
All Deimos did was just shake his head, “Of course it is. The price for good insurance for your life will obviously be high.”
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
“You know I can’t afford this, and you know you’ll be paying, right? Just how rich are you?”
Deimos just sighed, grabbed a few things, and walked away despite my complaints.
In the end, he ended up buying a pair of knuckle dusters, some light-weight armor, and a strange rectangular device that when activated, would spray out a healing mist to recover wounds over time. It was made of metal with two black antennas coming out of it. One of them rose an inch into the air before looping down to form a u-shape. The second rose two inches before ending in a cone with holes lining its sides.
Before I could try anything on, however, the armor and knuckles were taken to the back by an employee after Deimos handed him some bundled up… whatever. When it was in the car, I didn’t ask questions, when he brought it into the mall with us, he said it was a secret, and now the curiosity was just overwhelming.
After some discussion in the back and the sound of power tools being used for a long twenty minutes, the woman came out again, and the gear had seemingly transformed.
The knuckle dusters were originally just some iron knuckles, a little something to give me some extra punching-power. They were now wrapped in some sort of green, tough hide, and short, yellow spikes jutted out from the ends. In addition, a small, yellow magic core was embedded into each one.
The armor had also undergone a transformation. Originally, it was the hide of some somewhat mutated bulls; not actual monsters yet, but still tougher than the average cow. It was also mixed with some more modern materials such as kevlar. Now, the same greenish-yellow hide covered it. Short, yellow spikes jutted out from various spots, and a larger yellow magic core was stuck in the center of the armor under a layer of a tough, translucent membrane. In addition, on the right arm of the armor, there was some strange bulge in the sleeve that formed a spiral around where my arm would go.
For some reason, the design of the equipment was…
“Familiar?”
Turning back to look at Deimos, he elaborated, “This was that monster you killed in that outbreak. It was your kill, so by law, you get the loot. Since you wouldn’t know the best way to handle the materials, I held onto them.”
“So, this was that toad thing?” I asked, remembering my battle with it.
“Yep. Try it on in there, “ He pointed to a changing room, “and follow me after. I’ll handle buying it while you try it on.”
Following his directions, I grabbed my new stuff and changed into them. The armor fit like a glove somehow, but the weird bulge on the sleeve was somewhat concerning and confusing if not physically uncomfortable. The knuckle dusters, too, felt pretty good in my hands, the yellow spikes coming out of them making me feel dangerous and deadly. The small healing gadget fit right into a belt on the armor, and it beeped twice before letting out a third, cheerful beep.
I walked out of the changing room feeling empowered by new equipment before following Deimos to a built in training room. It was way smaller than the one in the DME, but there weren’t a lot of people around, so it was fine.
“Okay, so first, I won’t even ask how it feels, it’s designed to be a ‘one-for-all’ kind of thing with some magic. Second, do you know anything about magic equipment; and not hoverboards or stuff with built in batteries.”
“Uh, no.” I responded, somewhat sheepishly.
“That checks out. Okay, first off, magical equipment only functions because of magic cores. The little magic crystals in our blood are all attuned to a certain element, and the same rule applies to a monster’s magic core. Magic is an omnipresent energy that fills everything. When this energy is channeled and passed through magic cores and crystals, it is given a certain flavor. That flavor is whatever magic type the crystals are attuned to.
This flavored magic fills us up and affects our appearance, biology, and mentality, and when we cast magic, we use up some of that well of flavored magic that we build up over time. When our magic recovers, that’s just the ambient magical energy passing through the magic crystals in your blood. You can actually pass your magic through a monster’s magic core to change its type. However, it will be somewhat weaker because through each change of type, some magic is lost in the progress.
A monster’s parts are attuned to its magic, so to use the equipment properly, you have to channel your magic through the monster’s core and through parts of your armor to activate them. Though, the little device you have on your hip has three magic cores along the side that all need magic to be passed through them; it’s a single-use spray that’s set to only activate when all the cores are activated to prevent accidental activations.”
“... So in summary, magic goes through cores and into equipment, yeah?” I dead-panned, feeling like that small tidbit was all I needed instead of a mini-lecture.
“Essentially, yes.” Deimos nodded.
“Cool.” I said as I walked towards the line of ballistic gel dummies against the wall.
After dropping into a fighting stance, I pulled a bit of my dark magic—against its will—through the magic core and into the spikes on the knuckles. Suddenly, blue and yellow arcs of lightning sparked across the yellow points. Excitedly, I let loose a jab, jab, straight, left hook combo, the ballistic gel was pierced, punched, and pummeled with the gel starting to melt slightly with each electric-empowered punch.
After letting out a few more good punches, I left the poor dummy alone and decided to test out my armor. Once activated, the spines along my shoulders, arms, and back started sparking with power, electricity jumping across them in a spiderweb of charged energy.
After a little while of using my new tools, I was about to suggest we leave with me figuring out all the bits of my armor, but Deimos stopped me before I could start, “Hold on. You still have one other part to try.”
“Wait, I do?” I asked, confused. There wasn’t a lot of complexity to the armor, so how had I missed something?
“See that bulge on your arm?” He pointed out, “Pour some power through that. Oh, also, try aiming at a dummy or the wall.”
Looking at the strange deformation, I took a few steps back, aimed at the wall, and pumped some magic into it. Suddenly, a pink, fleshy tendril with yellow spines sticking out of it flew at the wall. Latching onto the wall with surprising stickiness as well as a couple smaller spikes catching on the wall, I was suddenly flung forwards as—what I presumed to be—the tongue tried to pull itself back into my armor.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuck!”
*Crack*
“Owww.”
“... I mean, Newton’s third law; what’d you expect?”
“... Fuck you Newton.”