NOVEL SIMPLE 12 + 1 = Unlucky Number
Two young women struggled against each other. They rolled on the ground. One pulled hair. The other gouged eyes. Azoria stood over them with her body tilting. The spaded tail waved idly behind her back as she held her hands extended from her sides raised from her wrists in a stretch.
“How dare she be more beautiful than you. It’s only fair that you serve up a little justice. Oh, look at that, your strength has gone up and your grip has improved. I bet you can rip the hair right out of her pretty little head.”
Simultaneously another Azoria kneeled behind the girl whose back was on the floor. This girl squeezed her thumbs into the other girl’s eyes as her hair was pulled.
“She has such beautiful eyes and she uses them to get what she wants. Don’t let her out compete you. Take them from her!”
Hair ripped from flesh. An eye popped with wet gurgling smashing. Azoria licked her lips, drank from her glass, and moved on. The two women, one missing a chunk of scalp and the other missing an eye, fell over one another, exhausted.
The walls of the cave began to undulate. Circular patterns formed at various intervals. Azoria twirled and snapped her fingers. A bass beat boomed from all directions just loud enough to not be missed. It needed some treble. Azoria twirled and snapped her fingers again. Smaller circles formed at regular intervals around the bigger circles. A high-pitched striking sound joined between the bass notes. Finally, it was timed for the chanting of low-key monks interrupted discordantly at regular intervals.
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As the music picked up, Megan found herself alive again. She patted her office uniform while taking deep controlled breath and then felt for the wound shot through her head. Her forehead had no such wound anymore. A lucky silver dime still rested in her other hand.
“I’m still alive?”
She scrolled through her powers. It was that passive.
Diminishing Returns 01: Once a day, upon receiving a fatal wound, you will revive yourself at full health at the cost of a permanent ten percent reduction of your original height, width, and length. Full damage immunity for five minutes upon revival. Weight and body structure will be altered acordingly. All Strength and Toughness Stats will be reduced by ten percent their original value.
Was this why her uniform felt a little loose? Megan got to her feet. The disembodied cat face with bat wings, her mascot, flew around her head.
Annoying Mascot 01: An annoyingly weak mascot who gives obvious advice and useless commentary has twenty minutes a day to help you as best it can. Take good care of it.
“Megan, Megan, we have to get nyout of here! If you take anyather hit like that you’ll be dead for nyareals!”
“My own team targeted me for easy experience! Where’s Dims?”
“They killed him too! They’re using him to level up their rez and dps abilities.”
Megan looked about as she tightened the belt on her skirt. The former secretary was now five feet tall. The revival skill worked exactly as described. Because she had been scaled down, her shoes no longer fit properly and her blouse had become baggy.
The friendly little cat-bat, also one of her abilities, appeared for a limited time when there was trouble. Megan noted a wand ability as well, but since she possessed neither a wand or a staff, she hadn’t paid much attention to whatever it did. The mascot vanished out of existence when she wasn’t paying attention to it, probably to save the limited amount of time per day it had with her.
The loafers had to be abandoned. They’d just trip her. She looked for John and the other two girls that had betrayed them. It didn’t take long to see the shimmering light surrounding John as he floated in the air. His wounds healed and he began to blink.
A girl below him lifted her hand and raised her costume party staff.
“I cast lucky coin!”
A pile of silver dimes manifested in her palm. The sorceress bought her palm to her lips and opened her hand, took a deep breath, and blew. The coins shot forward as if out of the barrel of a shotgun and peppered John’s body. Blood gushed from both entrance and exit wounds. The body jolted and dropped to the floor with a thud.
Eyes stared vacantly. Mouth hung open. Nose dripped mucus as he extended his open hand reaching for Megan, who could hear his silent pleas for rescue. The short woman gripped her clothes and watched as his body lifted again. The wounds began healing and his eyes flickered open. He gasped and flinched against recalled pain.
“I cast lucky coin!”
Thirteen silver coins shot towards his body. They knocked out his teeth, exploded his eyes, tore off his left ear, opened holes in his forehead and out the back of his skull, and destroyed even more of his Mendy’s server uniform.
Megan felt her stomach turn, and yet, she couldn’t look away. The body thumped to the floor with a splat in the doubled pool of blood underneath it. Once again, he lay, this time with no eyes and tear from his lip that exposed the broken teeth.
A soft voice giggled behind her. Megan felt soft hands with sharp fingernails rake her decreased frame, “Look at him, mister nice guy himself. He trusted them. You trusted them. And what do you get in return, target practice. Do you want to be target practice too? You’re smaller and even more vulnerable. And your resurection ability is inactive for the next twenty-four hours.”
Megan shivered, tears ran down her cheeks and dripped on the floor as John’s body rose again and his wounds began the healing process that would allow him to be revived. Azoria breathed a hot whisper into the girl’s ear.
“Look at their skills.”
Megan hurriedly opened the reference tab and went through the names. What if the girls had given false names? She’d never find them. Megan gulped; she’d know soon enough. No, they were on the list, Lizbet and Janelle. She focused on Lizbet’s relevant skill first.
Lucky Coin Novice 01: Manifests a pile of thirteen lucky coins. These coins can be shot with high acceleration at an opponent with fifty percent increased accuracy over normal spells. If the opponent dies within five minutes, the spell can be cast again. If the opponent lives, the spell goes on cooldown for three days.
Then she shifted focus to Janelle and looked up her revive skill.
Useless Revival Novice 01: Can revive a target once a day. If the target is killed within five minutes after revival, this skill can be used again. If the target survives past five minutes, the caster’s heart explodes. Levels into Mean Revival.
Eyes opened. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Squirming to escape his revive circle did nothing. Chunks of loosely digested food poured down already torn and blood-stained clothing as his pants stained yellow. Head craned. Eyes darted frantically and caught Megan’s watching him.
“Help me! It hurts! I don’t want to die again!”
Lizbet waved her wand and opened her hand.
“I cast Lucky coin!”
Coins shot forward. Chunks of flesh ripped from his neck and shoulder. The left arm fell to the floor. Fingers still twitched. The body hit the floor in time with the music pouring from the cave.
Megan put a pale hand to her mouth. The contents of her stomach flowed into it but she forced herself to swallow before they escaped. Knees trembled as she stepped back as tears rained around her stocking feet. The two casters remained too busy grinding their respective skills to notice her flee.
The body reached for her desperately as she ran. Janelle walked forward and gave it a good kick. When she heard a gurgle the hunting knife she had picked up from a fight earlier came out. Her sneaker clamped down on the neck before the knife went through the skull. She stood up and reurned the bloody knife to her belt. Blood seeped from the fresh corpse to pool under her.
"How much mana do you have?"
"It's at about twenty, but my magic stats have broken into triple digets from all this training," Lizbet said, "It's hard to tell with mana exactly because the number moves up and down. Maybe the system doesn't want us to know the exact number?"
"Really, I noticed my mana bar does that too! We should reserve our strength for now. Got any more tea?"
"I have four bottles, and we can still use the empties to gather water."
The case next to her foot lifted back over her shoulder. Lizbet opened the flap to reveal a small cooler compartment with a few bottles of tea, some wrapped sandwiches, and some snacks. A heartfelt smile was offered to her friend, whose stomach growled.
"Are you hungry? We'll have to eat these sandwiches before they go bad anyway,' she said with a cute laugh, "Maybe they'll help refuel our mana so we can practice some more."