“Jebediah, but I prefer Jeb. I don’t like sounding biblical.”
“So, what’s your story, Jeb?”
***2 days, 15 hours remaining***
“So, where you headed?” Jeb asked, carving off slices of Krusker for both of them.
“Oh, I’m headed west, I suppose. Towards the mountains. I was wondering why there was a stretch of empty land, but it must have been these guys.” He said, lifting the rib he was gnawing on to emphasize.
“Careful of the raptors there. They took out a group of seven that passed by here a little over a week ago. They’re supposed to be stealthy.”
“Thanks, man. it shouldn’t be a problem, though.” Ron said, before eyeing Jebediah quizzically. “Got anything to barter?”
“I’ve got a couple lenses I might be willing to trade parts of.” Jeb said. “These, though,” he said, patting his cane and magical girl wand. “These I want to keep.”
“I’m gonna bring in my gear. Don’t freak out.”
“Kay.”
Ron’s gear came in packs draped across zombified walkers that looked something like daddy long legs.
He grabbed the packs off of them and spread the items out on the ground in front of Jeb. Most of it was quality of life stuff. It was fairly obvious that Ron would hold onto the truly powerful stuff for himself, but Jeb spotted another cleaning wand, along with a couple water spigots. There were a few rings with decent stat boosts.
“Is there a limit to the number of rings you can wear?”
“Two,” Ron said, waggling his fingers. There was a shining ivory and silver ring on his left and right hands. “So these are kind of superfluous for me.”
Hmmm…
Jeb pointed out the ivory ring of Myst +2, the magical girl cleaning wand, a water producing lens, and a peculiar looking stiletto knife without any kind of crossguard.
Stilleto of Piercing.
Crafted by a master smith, this Udium tipped blade rotates violently when pressed down hard, penetrating all but the strongest armor.
“All this is on my wishlist.”
“What’ve you got?” Ron asked, leaning forward expectantly.
Jeb pulled out the scarab lens and the worm lens, laying them down in front of the necromancer.
“Neat,” Ron said, looking at the scarab lens. “I hadn’t found any of these yet. Can I test it?”
“NO!” Acorn shouted, attracting their attention.
“I gave my word not to use it near their home,” Jeb said with a shrug. He reached out with Myst and pulled one of the discarded scarabs nearby.
“They’re about this big, I figure you could use them to clean the flesh off your zombies, or, if you sanded the dots off the face of the front, you could probably summon one huge beetle, kill it, and add it to your group. You can use them for food, too.”
“Oh, so it’s genesis and not a temporary summon?” Ron asked, looking intrigued.
“Far as I can tell. I ate some, and it didn’t vanish or anything.”
“Neato.”
Ron eyed the rotted stick, immediately noticing the worms crawling on it.
“This one you can test,” Jeb said, handing it to him.
Jeb got to watch the neon purple power funnel through the necromancer’s palm into the stick before beams of white Myst shone out of the raw lens in every direction.
A fraction of a second later, everyone and everything was covered in worms.
“Ack, pbbblt, I got one in my mouth!’” Ron said, spitting.
The surrounding fairies squealed with joy and began hunting the wiggling arms with enthusiasm, launching a worm-y massacre as they dragged them back to their ravenous grubs.
“And that’s how the worm lens works,” Jeb said, chuckling. He’d hidden his face behind his sleeve and come out relatively unscathed, worm-wise.
“Thanks, but no thanks on the worms,” Ron said, eyeing the stick where he’d dropped it. “I don’t really have any use for them.”
“This though,” Ron said, holding up the scarab bone. “I could trade you the ring or the knife, or the wand and water lens together.
“You can’t even use that ring.” Jeb protested.
“Doesn’t mean it’s not valuable to somebody.” Ron said with a grin.
“Some…body?” Jeb asked, his mind making a sudden connection. “What’s the going rate on the corpse of a level thirty-five warrior?”
“Level thirty five!? I could make a death-knight with that!”
Ron cleared his throat. “I mean…I could take it or leave it. No big deal.”
Ron knew he’d goofed.
Jeb didn’t even bother concealing his wicked smile.
“Tell you what. You seem to be very interested in this Death Knight of yours. How about I give you the body for these items instead?” he said, pulling his scarab lens out of the pile.
Ron clicked his tongue, scowling.
“I wanna barter too.” Jessica said, landing two feet away from them, descending straight out of the blue sky to slam down beside the two Myst-users.
Ron gave a strangled squawk and tumbled over backwards. His zombies flinched, leaping to their feet and raising their weapons for a moment before sitting back down, their owner processing the assassin’s words.
“…sure.”
Jebediah Trapper
Unclassed, Level 14
Body 10
Myst 29 +2
Nerve 8 +3
Chapter 6: mermaids in lakes are larger than they appear
***2 days, 13 hours remaining until Safe Zones expire***
“Muahaha!” Jeb cackled, admiring his new ring and especially the stiletto orbiting his head as he practiced his fine control. He wanted to be good enough to perform surgery with his telekinesis before he cut open his cleaning wand, searching for the death and dismemberment they’d promised.
He even had a spare in case he messed up the first one. And a supply of infinite water.
All for Redbeard's corpse.
A damn good deal.
“You went garage-sale-ing a lot before the end of the world, didn’t you?” Jessica asked as they walked through the forest, aiming for the sirens to the south.
“My parents used to have money making competitions during the
