Mak Luck, the leader of the Poison Dagger Guild, was watching Captain Gru and Lt. Row escorting the new arrivals from the jump pad.

“What are your orders, Director Luck?” asked his body guard.

Mak Luck ordered, “call the rest of the guild fighters and prepare the privacy enchantment. The Arc Guild thinks it is so honorable, always staying neutral and going wherever they want. It is about time someone takes them down a notch. Once we have killed the entire party, we will plant the evidence to frame the Stone Guild for the deaths, and then let the Arc Guild take out its revenge on them.”

Captain Gru was hurrying the group through the streets towards the Arc Guild when Jen said, “heads up everyone, we are about to have company!” Captain Gru and Lt. Rowe acknowledged her comment, but there wasn’t much they could do, except keep them moving.

Within a few moments of her warning, about fifteen fighters entered the street ahead of them and blocked their path, then about ten more moved onto the street behind them. Jen began analyzing the levels, stats, and skills of the fighters surrounding them.

Captain Gru recognized some members of the Poison Dagger Guild, and announced, “We are with the Arc Guild and have no interest in your conflict with the Stone Guild. Let us pass!”

Jen and Tamako had turned to guard the party’s rear, keeping Sam and Alchemist Paul in the center of their small perimeter. Jen said, “There’s some type of mana signal-jammer starting to flow around us!”

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The Greater the Risk, the Greater the Reward!

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Gambling Quest: The Loot Is All Yours.

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Select your Fortune:

A. Accept the quest, survive the attack and kill any of your party members that remain alive, and keep all the loot for yourself. Receive 3x the ability points you gamble, 1 euphoria, and 1 euphoria antidote. Maximum bet 4. Odds of success 2%

B. Accept the quest, survive the attack, loot the enemy, and hide half the loot you collect from your party members. Receive 3x the ability points you gamble and euphoria. Maximum bet 4. Odds of success 10%

C. Decline Quest and continue your pathetic and slow rise to power.

==

Jen Selected “C,” and the quest was declined.

==

Jen messaged Sam and Tamako, “Wow! Didn’t know there was an antidote to euphoria. Talk about it later. Get ready, here they come!”

Sam pretended to be stressed rubbing his temples with his hands, then lowered his arms, and pulled his hands deep into the arms of his robes, hiding the log, grenade, water, and crossbow bolt rings he was equipping. Sam messaged to Tamako and Jen, “I’m ready with my rings, and I have maybe 5 lightning strikes worth of mana built up in my tattoo. I’m now directing all my mana regen to charge my healing tattoo enchantment.”

Jen noticed Sam hiding his rings and replied, “Good, Tamako and I are going to use the Arc Guild’s crappy swords and shields. However, we’re ready to pull our rings and gear depending on the next few minutes.”

Alchemist Paul announced, “My sound wave can’t get a message through to the Guild! It’s the signal jammer you sensed!”

Jen said to Alchemist Paul, “Throw me your sound wave, and leave the Arc Director’s contact info in it. I have a skill that will allow me to boost its signal.”

Paul immediately threw her the sound wave. Jen focused on what little mana she’d gathered, and used her psych skill to reinforce the sound wave. With her mana so low, she just barely pierced the signal jammer long enough to get a call out. Unfortunately, the Arc Deck Director did not answer the call.

Jen announced, “I could only leave a quick message regarding our situation and location. I hope he checks his messages.”

While Jen was sending the message, Captain Gru pulled out an enchanted scroll and activated it. A mana barrier formed up around their small group and he said, “This spell scroll will block projectile weapons and enemy spells for five minutes, but we can still fire arrows and spells out of it. Unfortunately, it will not stop them from entering melee combat with us.”

Mak Luck was unaware that Jen could punch a message through his privacy enchantment, and he laughed, “Captain Gru, your little barrier will not save you. We’re going to kill all of you, and your precious Arc Guild can’t do anything to save you!” Then he ordered, “Attack!”

Mak Luck’s guild cast spells, fired arrows, threw spears, and several even fired what looked like steam-powered crossbow bolts, but Captain Gru’s mana barrier held strong. Captain Gru and Lt. Rowe then drew their own steam-powered crossbows.

Sam watched the red-hot metal bolt fly from Gru’s strange weapon as steam billowed out of the barrel. The bolt punched through the armor and body of one woman, leaving a cauterized steaming hole in her chest the size of a fist before it lodged into the chest of a man behind her. Both dropped instantly, appearing to be dead. Rowe’s bolt exploded the head of a woman that was in the middle of chanting what Sam thought must be a spell. Without pause, Gru and Rowe smoothly and quickly transferred their steam-powered crossbows for their regular bows from their storage rings. They fired several arrows into the enemy before being forced to transition to their swords. The efficiency and speed of Captain Gru’s and Lt. Rowe’s attacks surprised Sam. He noticed Jen and Tamako had not been idle either. They recovered some of the thrown spears that were halted by the barrier, and had returned them to their owners, tip first.

Mak Luck watched the barrier block the spells and ranged weapons, and turned red with rage and screamed, “Quit wasting time! We outnumber them! Charge them now!” The fighters facing Captain Gru and Lt. Rowe were cautious and slower in their advance, but those facing Jen and Tamako readied their weapons and ran forward.

When traveling to Rolling Dice City, Jen, Tamako, and Sam trained and planned for responding to an ambush. As a result, Jen and Tamako were ready when Sam hollered, “Gru, Rowe, Paul, when I say ‘duck’, DUCK! When I say ‘Clear’ start fighting again!” Sam waited another half second, allowing his orders to sink in, and he yelled, “Duck!” The entire party ducked down and Sam pointed one robed arm towards the enemy in the front and the other arm towards the enemy in the rear. He released all the crossbow bolts out of his hidden rings. It was like a rapid-fire machine gun, but instead of firing bullets. He fired over 100 crossbow bolts out of each of his extended arms. His armor-piercing bolts penetrated the poison dagger fighters’ armor. Unfortunately, many of the poisoned bolts that were not armor piercing simply bounced off, and only a few of the fighters were unlucky enough to have a bolt strike them in an unarmored area of their body. The poison caused their blood to turn green and muscles to seize up, slowing them down, but not killing them.

“Damn!” Sam thought in frustration. He imagined the crossbow bolts might not be as effective on the Second Deck, but he didn’t expect so many to just bounce off the armor or even the exposed skin of a few of the enemy. He immediately yelled, “Stay down!” and followed up with “Logs!”. The massive logs flew out of his hidden rings, smashing the fighters against the buildings and knocking them all over the alley. Sam hollered, “Clear!”

When Captain Gru heard the command in Sam’s voice, he didn’t hesitate to follow Sam’s orders. Even while ducking down, he and Lt. Rowe continued to fire arrows into the enemy. Unlike Sam’s bolts, the draw power of their bows caused their arrows to penetrate the armor of most of the Poison Dagger fighters.

When Captain Gru saw hundreds of bolts fly out of Sam’s arms, his surprise almost caused him to lose his focus on the battle, but he couldn’t help but wonder “He must be a deck dropper heading back to the Third or Fourth Deck! His mana absorption and pool must be that of a minor gambling god!” Then Captain Gru saw logs and literal trees fly over his head, smashing and crushing the enemy! This actually did shock Captain Gru to the point of pausing for a second until he heard Sam announce, “Clear!”

Tamako was blocking the fighters with her shield and keeping them at a distance with her sword, while Jen had used her speed to ‘borrow’ some knives off of a few of the downed enemy. She then retreated behind Tamako for cover, as she used the throwing knives to pin cushion the fighters that tried to flank them. The Poison Dagger fighters could not defend against Jen’s speed, accuracy, and power with the knives, while also attacking Tamako.

Unfortunately, many of the injured were taking healing potions and moving behind cover, waiting for the mana barrier to burn out. They didn’t know how long it would last, but they knew most mana barriers with this amount of power could only last a few minutes.

Sam was grinning like an insane demon; he’d taken notice of the Poison Dagger’s spell casters and ranged fighters taking cover, and launched lightning bolts at a few of the enemy that refused to move into melee range.

Sam was keeping a tally on the battle and could tell that Tamako and Jen were getting the better of the remaining enemy fighters attacking from their end of the alley. However, the best enemy fighters had attacked from the front, taking on Captain Gru and Lt. Rowe. They were currently in melee fending off 5 enemy fighters that were trying to get around them to attack Sam and Paul. One fighter nicked Lt. Rowe with some sort of fire blade that cut through what Sam guessed was Rowe's femoral artery. Rowe's leg was gushing blood as he dropped to the knee of his good leg. Sam hit the enemy fighter and two others next to Rowe with a log. It knocked them back about ten feet, giving Sam enough time to cast a healing spell on Lt. Rowe. Sam was thankful that the life threatening injury could be fixed with such a minor amount of healing mana targeting just the artery.

Sam messaged Jen, “My healing tattoo is already out of mana, and I only have a little left in my lightning tattoo.”

Jen replied, “Hold steady. Keep your other rings hidden. I think they’re about to break.”

Just then, the remaining two enemy fighters facing Captain Gru tried to retreat. As they turned to run, he cut them down with ease. Sam took out one more of the ranged fighters with a lightning bolt, but held back from attacking anymore, as it looked like the remaining fighters were indeed scattering.

Jen ordered, “Don’t give chase. I’ve just received a message that reinforcements are on their way, and if there are any ranged fighters in hiding, we will expose ourselves outside of the mana barrier.”

Sam gave Jen and Tamako a conspiratorial wink, and then collapsed to the ground, while secretly storing his rings back into his teeth caps. He was trying to give the appearance of being completely drained of all his mana and strength.

Arc Guild fighters started arriving and striking down some of the fleeing Poison guild fighters. Jen’s psych skill allowed her to intercept a sound wave message between the Arc Guild and Stone Guild, wherein they negotiated a short-term alliance. She learned an additional twenty Stone Guild fighters were also on their way to help.

Mak Luck was furious as he watched the destruction of his guild in less than 5 minutes and yelled, “That mage and his group must have dropped from a higher deck! No one has that much mana to keep casting spells!” Mak Luck knew he needed to leave the city and go into hiding. His plan had failed, and The Stone Guild, with the Arc Guild’s help, would hunt down and kill every Poison Dagger member in the City.

As Mak Luck made his way down a side alley, he didn’t even notice the fat black and white cat sitting in a doorway. After his head left his body, and for the one second his brain continued to work, he couldn’t comprehend what had killed him.