Interludes 2 & 3

Another bonus chapter!

These will be placed near the end of book 1.

Tony shook his head violently, sending drops of sweat flinging out of his eyes. He couldn’t waste time wiping his face, and lacked normal hands to do it with at the moment anyway.

The sight of his quicksilver Metal Hands morphed into tongs and a hammer he used to beat a piece of promising red-hot metal into shape was a joy he’d never imagined before entering the game. The death battle was brutal, but he saw ways to thrive that so few others seemed to grasp.

Why was it so hard for some folks to focus and to cooperate? Their lack of vision would not slow him down. With his new class, Paladin Savant, he had unlocked real power, and he planned to use it to forge Earth’s survivors into a successful team to defeat even the terrifying Marisara.

How could they not win? He could transform his hands into living metal, for crying out loud. Coupled with his Creative Frenzy class spell, he could forge weapons and armor faster than his namesake Marvel character.

He’d need every advantage. The obstacles they faced were daunting, but not insurmountable.

“We can do this. I can do this,” Tony growled as he quenched the piece of metal in a vat of oil with a hiss of steam, then turned toward the armor that was already taking shape on his workbench.

He had to become the strongest human. Not just because he couldn’t imagine anyone else beating him, but because their people needed leaders. The council was doing a decent job, but it was obvious a fighter was going to have to rise to take the lead.

Burns might succeed, but Tony saw him excel more as the hard-nosed sergeant that could beat the rank and file into fighting shape while he set the vision and strategy. The partnership could be super effective.

It definitely couldn’t be Lucas. That guy was a puzzle. Despite his levels still lagging, he was turning out to have a real knack for killing the important monsters and winning critical loot. Those were vital skills, and Tony planned to leverage Lucas’s power. Maybe as a front-line commander, except Lucas just wasn’t a leader, and he didn’t seem to understand his place. That could cause all sorts of trouble.

If he continued stealing the limelight, he could end up usurping control from those who knew better how to lead. As an actor, Tony knew all too well how important screen time was. An actor who lost his starring role to a new upstart quickly got sidelined, and this game was far more important than any movie. The entire fate of Earth hung in the balance, so everyone needed to unite behind a powerful leader, an inspiring figure.

Lucas simply could not be that figure. He spent too much time out in the wilds alone, hunting monsters. It was a miracle he hadn’t died yet. He probably would. When he did appear, he might be open to taking on the role Tony envisioned for him, but Tony could not leave anything to chance. The stakes were simply too high. Unity was more important than individual strength, but Lucas only had strength.

To generate that unity, Tony needed to develop a persona that everyone would recognize, that everyone could rally behind. The system AI had given him the perfect team, and even set him up to play the perfect character.

Earth needed an Avenger to lead them to victory and salvation. Tony embraced the role and got back to work. If Tony Stark could build a flying Iron Man suit from scraps in a cave, Tony would build his own version using magic and liquid metal hands.

Steve’s hands blurred with speed as he poured tequila and orange liqueur into a steel glass, squeezed a fresh lime over the top with his bare hands, then dumped in some ice from his inventory. In a flash, he capped the custom cocktail shaker and shook it vigorously for exactly 2 seconds.

With a flourish no one but he could see, he produced a delicate glass, already rimmed with salt and poured the fresh margarita without losing a single drop. A final shaved lime wheel garnish settled onto the top just as he set the glass down onto the pure white linen tablecloth next to the others.

With a grimace, Steve extracted the Echoing Doom potion and poured exactly 4 drops into the recently-created margarita. “This had better work,” Steve muttered to himself, then tossed the potion and all of his margarita-making tools back into his inventory.

When he had badgered Cyrus for a quest to transform his single potion of Echoing Doom into a temporary scroll to summon that potion so he could make it permanent, he had not expected to have to sacrifice the potion during the quest. If he failed, he would lose the potion too.

“Never going to happen,” Steve growled as his bow dropped into his hands.

He needed this potion, needed the potential power boost it offered , needed to show that he could keep up. Lucas was on a singular path, and neither Steve nor Ruby could help him enough. They were a team, so they had to figure out how to up their game.

Random, crazy quests might be common for Lucas, but this was Steve’s first, and it was a weird one. Steve was already drawing the string back and willing a sharp-pointed, barbed arrow to appear before he even raised his eyes to the horde of a dozen warty, green-skinned little monsters charging out of the trees into his clearing.

He usually liked enthusiastic customers, but these guys were insane. The little monsters had swollen beer bellies, red noses marred by huge pulsing blue veins, and giant, bloodshot eyes. They raced toward the table on short, oddly bent legs, their long, gangly arms outstretched toward Steve. Or, more precisely, toward the drinks lined up on the table in front of him.

His small, white-covered table stood in the center of a cute little clearing, covered in short-cropped, soft grass, ringed by forest on all sides. The 8 corpses of other monsters were the only eye sores marring the idyllic scene.

“It’s not happy hour,” Steve growled, loosing the first arrow less than 2 seconds after finishing the latest margarita.

16 drinks stood in perfect ranks on the table, each containing precious drops of his potion, and his quest required him to keep it that way. Six more drinks to go, and he’d win, but the monsters were getting bolder and growing in numbers. As his arrow punched through the heart of the nearest little beast, Identify triggered again.

“Tipsy Boozlekin. Level 13. Common. Every bar has a couple of drunks who linger too long and make a nuisance of themselves. These permanently-sloshed distant cousins to the goblins make your average town drunk look downright respectable by comparison. At the first whiff of alcohol, they go into a berserker frenzy, intent on guzzling the booze and the life blood of any living being anywhere close to it.”

“Warning. If any Tipsy Boozlekin manages to drink a margarita, they’ll trigger their Keg Party ability, tripling their size and all stats.”

No doubt his potion would add some other nasty surprises too, but Steve would never give them the chance. He knew how to flush riffraff.

As they closed in a rush, the Boozlekin shouted a garbled, barely-understood chant like a battle cry. “Drink! Drink! Drink!”

They were super annoying. Steve shot a second one, then a third, but the rest kept coming. They’d swarm his table before he could finish them all off, so he made a slashing motion with his left hand, unleashing his water manipulation spell.

A whip-like tendril of water materialized out of thin air and slapped across half a dozen of the Boozlekin faces in a single long strike. The impact catapulted them off their feet with shrieks of animal rage. Wielding water was like a taste of home, and Steve couldn’t hide a smile. If only he’d had elemental powers back on earth, plumbing would have been a breeze.

Steve fired again, taking down another beastie, but the last 2 were almost to the table. So Steve vaulted it and drop-kicked one of the monsters, sending it catapulting back into the ranks of the others he’d just knocked down with water, sending the entire group crashing back to the ground again.

The final monster leaped at Steve, long, clawed hands raking toward his face, shrieking “Drink!” so loud, its spittle sprayed across Steve’s face.

He let it come, triggering one of the charges of his Barrier Bracers. A protective sphere enveloped him, and the Boozlekin bounced off, shrieking with rage, so upset it ripped at its own long, pointy ears so hard, one of them tore free.

Steve’s laser rifle dropped into his hands and he shouted, “Drinks are for paying customers only!” as he rapid-fired the weapon.

Arrows were so much better, but firing a Star Wars blaster rifle was the fulfillment of a childhood dream. He focused on the wonder of that dream instead of the nasty things he was forced to do with the rifle. He walked the laser blasts across the horde of monsters, and their heads exploded in a series of gory geysers.

Three seconds later, he landed behind the table again, washed his hands with a flask of water, and resumed fast-mixing drinks. One after another joined the growing ranks on the table as the level of potion in the bottle steadily drained.

He had to fight down two more monster hordes, each slightly larger than the last, before he placed the final margarita onto the table with a triumphant shout. Twenty-eight Boozlekin were charging out of the forest in a wave of ridiculous monstrosity he’d never stop in time, but as soon as the last glass touched down, a loud chime sounded.

The monsters disappeared in flashes of rainbow smoke, and Cyrus’s voice echoed around the glade.

“Well done! You might be the fastest drink mixer on Arasha.”

“Do I get a title for that?”

Cyrus considered it for a moment. “Maybe we should upgrade your loot box”

Eva broke in. “Quest complete! You receive an emerald Road House loot box.”

“Emerald? Nice!” He’d only been promised a platinum box for the quest initially. Upgrade indeed. Steve threw out his hands to welcome the huge, brightly-glowing green loot box. Lucas might get emerald and diamond loot boxes like candy, but they were rare enough for Steve, that he reveled in the moment.

With a flash of blinding light and a growing chorus of cheering voices, the emerald loot box exploded into shards of green lightning, leaving 2 scrolls floating in the air. With a sense of wonder, Steve focused on the first scroll, which was strangely blank. Identify triggered.

“Temporary spell scroll mixer. Pour any alcoholic mixture containing a potion onto this spell scroll to transform it into a scroll to summon that potion. The more mixture applied to the spell scroll mixer, the more powerful the end result.”

“Didn’t see that coming” Steve said as he scooped up the first of the recently-created margaritas. “Cheers,” he added before dumping the margarita onto the scroll.

The liquid disappeared into the scroll, getting sucked into it like a drain. The scroll started to glow a faint, golden color, so Steve snatched up the next margarita and dumped it too. In quick succession, he dumped all of the margaritas he’d recently created, and with each one the glow intensified until the temporary scroll mixer shone like a miniature sun.

As soon as he finished, the scroll flashed with silver light, and text appeared on the now plain-looking scroll.

“Temporary scroll. Summon a potion of Echoing Doom. Rare. Level 2. Create up to 5 clones per level. By default, each clone will look and dress like you, and will mimic your moves and attacks. Adjustments will become available through practice and spell leveling. Any damage you receive will reflect to your clones, destroying them first. Duration: 60 seconds per level.”

Steve laughed, clapping loudly. He looked up and exclaimed, “Thank you, Cyrus! That’s a huge upgrade.”

“Winning quests unlocks a lot of options not available to basic loot drops,” Cyrus responded, sounding very pleased.

“Good, I need it,” Steve whispered, blowing out a breath. He liked to joke and tease, especially with Ruby, but that could not long hide his growing concern that he would not be useful to the team for much longer. With this new temporary scroll, he had a shot at reaching some real power. He would not let them down.

“You’re on Lucas’s team, so I expect a great show,” Cyrus responded.

Whistling a happy tune to himself, Steve checked the other scroll.

“Title scroll. New title: Cocktail Commando.

You’re a one-man elite bartending strike force.

Plus 10 to Intelligence.

Plus 2 levels to Echoing Doom.

Plus 50% damage dealt by clones when wielding Molotov Cocktails or other alcohol-based attacks you create.”

“Sweet!” He pumped a fist into the air as the stats took effect. It was like his mind swelled with power, but despite feeling like his skull was suddenly too small to contain his fast-racing thoughts, Steve felt no pain. Just awe and excitement. With that huge stat boost and spell level boost, this quest was turning out better than his wildest hopes.

Riding that high, Steve downed a margarita he’d mixed before the quest. It was so good, he gulped a second. Delicious.

“I’m going to have a lot of fun with this,” he grinned, glancing at the distant mountains. He really wanted to rush out like Lucas and test his new spell, but time was short.

One more level, and he could make it permanent. Then the real work would begin. He’d show everyone he could keep up.