Trail 61 (Pt. 3): Cursed, Chance, Choices, And Consequences

Trail 61 (Pt. 3): Cursed, Chance, Choices, And Consequences

--- Jon ---

“I will never understand the appeal of guns.” Miss Edna grimaced as she watched his Ma fire several rounds at the target twenty-five meters down the range.

“That’s because you can shoot magic missiles at anything that bugs you.” His Ma pointed out. “But if you want me to ‘take it easy’ this is about as easy as I can get it. After all, all I’m doing is pointing and shooting.”

Miss Edna gave his Ma a flat look. “I’m not an idiot, I know more goes into shooting than that.” The older woman picked up a handgun and proceeded to eject the clip before loading another one. “Living through the Rift Riots Sam made sure I knew how to use one of these things in case I ran out of magic.”

To underline her point Miss Edna aimed down range with both hands on the gun before unloading the entire clip, each shot ending up within a few inches of the target’s center in spite of the speed she was firing at.

“Huh…” His Ma nodded, examining the target before crossing her arms. “And how much magic did you use to cheat those shots?”

Miss Edna made an insulted face. “What? You think I had to cheat to make those shots?”

“Yes, because: A, you haven’t fired a gun in years. B, you fired those rounds so fast any rust would’ve doubled. And C, my sight is slightly off to give me more of a challenge, since this is the civvie range.” His Ma explained dryly.

“Oh…” Miss Edna blinked, “Jon, it’s your turn.” before promptly throwing him into the line of fire.

“Do I have to?” He frowned looking down at the gun in his hand with some distaste. “I don’t really like guns.”

His ma gave Miss Edna an unimpressed look before turning back to him. “Even if you don’t like them you should know how to use them kiddo.”

“You know I know how to use a gun.” He reminded his Ma, even drier than her previous explanation. “I just… don’t like them.”

“Come on, Jon, you can’t tell me you’re scared of a gun.” Miss Edna smirked, knowing that he’d handled significantly scarier things than a gun.

“I’m not, it's just…” He sighed, realizing they weren’t going to let him out of this.

And so making sure both his grip and his stance was right, he took his gun and aimed down range at his target before pulling the trigger exactly once, knowing that as long as you were calm the first shot was the easiest.

Or it would’ve been if he hadn’t shot the hook holding his target, causing it to spark as his bullet proceeded to ricochet twice more before impacting the wall behind him.

All three of them stared at the small hole that was just inches from hitting him.

“Eddie… What, uh, what are the odds my kid is cursed?”

“You, uh, you don’t want me to honestly answer that Minnie.”

Scene Consequences

-Gained 2XP to Firearms

--Currently: Lv. 2 (3/6)

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

---

“You know when I offered to give you a freebie at the shop, I was expecting you to get a new weapon or a bit of armor to tank you up. I was not expecting you to somehow drop a full million dollars on it.” Tru ground out, irritation clear in spite of his smile. “I didn’t even know there was anything that expensive in the shop.”

“Well, you offered a freebie and knowing my Ma and my teacher, both would be disappointed if I didn’t take full advantage of the rich guy footing the bill.” He admitted, enjoying the older man’s annoyance far more than he should.

“But I’m not that rich…” Tru frowned. “Do you know how pissed Ms. Leed was with me? We’ve got bills to pay!”

“Blame Gra’loch he’s the one who set the price. In fact he didn’t even tell me how much that thing was worth, just that it was basically a ticking time bomb that terrified him and that he thought I could dispose of.” He was paraphrasing a lot of that, but he found he couldn’t quite bring himself to care how much money the crime lord running a city wide operation lost.

“You’d think that’d get you a discount or something.” Tru grumbled, before shaking his head and giving Jon a light glare. “Whatever, but you better put on one hell of a show for the new year’s tournament, which by the way I will now be kidnapping you for if you don’t show up.”

“You think you kidnap me and force me to compete?” He growled, glaring right back.

“Well, I’ve never tried it with anyone before but I’ve also never had someone rip me off for one. Million. Fucking. Dollars.” Tru admitted with a twitch of his eye as the man forced a smile on his face and spread his arms wide. “But hey, I like trying new things.”

He narrowed his eyes at the other man. “If you try to kidnap me, I’m burning this place to the ground.”

Tru threw his head back and laughed. “Ha!” Before leaning forward and meeting Jon’s eyes. “You’d have to beat me in a fight first kid.”

Later on, neither of them would remember who threw the first punch. Just that they were both equally intent on beating the other into the ground.

Scene Consequences

-Gained 2 XP to both Combat and 3XP to Beast’s Claw.

--Currently: Combat Lv. 8 (3/18) and Beast’s Claw Lv. 4 (6/10)

---

“So you’ve made your decision?” DeSade asked him as they sat with the Void Core chest between them.

“Yeah…” He sighed with a nod. “As much as I hate to admit it, I only did as well as I did against the Horror because the Scarecrow was wrapping up so much of its attention and power. Meaning if I’m going to be picking a fight with the Horror by myself then I’m going to need something with a fair bit of bite to back me up.” He gave the older man a wry grin. “And like you said, Madness already likes me.”

“So we’ll be jail breaking the Nexus then?” DeSade pressed with narrowed eyes.

“It’s a terrible idea, but so is picking a fight with a Demon. Might as well have my own Demon in my pocket just in case.” He nodded once more.

DeSade gave him a grin, “Yes, I’ve always found that while relying on myself is the best policy,” The world around them shifted ever so slightly as the shadows grew darker and the Dark Lord’s eyes flashed black. “It does pay to have… friends on the other side every now and then.”

Rather than being intimidated or impressed Jon merely rolled his eyes. “So how are we doing this?”

The light and DeSade’s eyes both returned to normal, as the man pretended that didn’t happen. “Given the… restricted nature of our experiment, I’ll need to set things up in such a way that we can let an eldritch entity into our world, without risking Madness exposure to the entire city. The trick will be doing so subtly enough that no interested parties will seek to investigate the sudden influx of Madness that will inevitably leak through. All in all I should have things ready by this weekend at the latest.”

“We can of course continue our lessons,” DeSade assured him. “But they will be less focused on developing what tools you believe will benefit your encounter with the Horror and more on the hows and whys of the ritual we’ll be using to jailbreak the Nexus. It is of course your decision whether or not this will be the best use of your limited time.”

(Yeah, don’t worry I can read your subtext.)

Scene Consequences

-DeSade will be spending the next few days setting up the ritual he’ll be using to jailbreak the Arcane Nexus on Turn 65. (This is now auto locked in for 1 AP.) Once ready Jon will be able to trigger a small Event to summon a Void Entity that resonates with him.

(I.E. I’ll give vague riddle descriptions and you’ll pick which Eldritch Waifu we’re getting.)

-Note: You can still take lessons with DeSade during this time, but they will be auto-directed towards his current task rather than whatever subject you choose.