Azaria 21 (Patreon)

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Chapter 21: Shopping!
 

Lance Teron

The first hot food in over a week made me drowsy, but I had work to do. While I could easily go find a place to sleep, I already had one of those in the dungeon. I needed to get a few sacrifices… subjects… victims… I shook my head as I couldn’t think of a good term to use. I would be leading people to their deaths.

“I’ll just have to make sure they’ve earned it,” I mumbled.

Thankfully, I had a bit of information to go on. I pulled out Friz’s phone. For being a down right murderer, he was quite organized. There were several corporations he was part of that I’d heard about of the darker parts of the web. I couldn’t help the laugh when I found they all had apps. 

“Slumbering Murder. Yikes.” That was some terrible naming sense if I’d ever seen any. Still, it was one of the most feared corporations that was rumored to exist. I decided to try a less advanced hurdle first. 

Clicking on the app Black Fist, I was auto signed in. I looked through the menus until I found what I was looking for. A party recruitment listing. There were several that were looking for members with certain abilities. It was similar to the one I had used to find parties to harvest for. 

People used to get a laugh when the Apps were first released. Many people that played online video games likened it to the dungeon or party finder that was implemented to make playing the game easier. Still, it was around even now because it was a system that worked.

I scrolled through the listing to see what my options were. The titles all sounded like I’d be murdered as soon as we met up. After a while and tweaking the filters, I was able to pull up only parties that were looking to dive Azaria’s dungeon. There were only two that were even looking for someone with decent frontline abilities.

Eventually, I flipped a coin and selected a party called Signaled Evil. With a quick message saying I had dived the dungeon once and had survived, I instantly got a reply with their acceptance. With a meeting set for tomorrow morning, I switched to the map app and found the nearest armor store.

“My clothing did take a beating, I’m actually more impressed it survived all it went through,” I mumbled as I turned on the street and started heading towards downtown. 

I had been walking for almost half an hour when four men emerged out of an alley forcing me to come to a stop. Sure, I wasn’t exactly in the best part of town, but what were my odds of this happening to me. If this was a game, I would have blamed it on my luck stat being too low.

I gave each man a glance then cracked my neck as I turned to the leader of the group. “Can I help you fine gentlemen?” 

“You should know how this works. Give us your money, let us beat the shit out of you, then you might get to go home to see you mommy,” the biggest and ugliest man said. He even pulled out a knife and licked it for good measure. I hope he’d had his shots. Magic was a thing now, but diseases were still very much a thing.

“I hope you cleaned that,” I said pointing at the knife.

The man’s nasty grin broke as he glared at me. “Yeah, I’ll wash it. With your blood! Let’s kill this fucker!”

The other men shouted in agreement and they charged me. At least they didn’t do the one at a time attack pattern. I took a boxing stance as I wasn’t sure I could handle a murder scene happening. It helped that they all appeared to be moving slow.

As the leader lunged with his knife, I stepped to the side and brought my right fist square up into his jaw and chin. I had underestimated both my own strength and the durability of his jaw. With an explosion of gore, his mouth vanished as blood splashed against the building wall next to us.

Not able to process their leader was dead, the other three kept coming. I reacted by twisting my body and bringing the heel of my left foot into the side of one man. He crumpled like a bent pipe and went sailing into the man next to him. They both collapsed to the ground twitching. 

The last man managed to hit my shoulder with a steel pipe, but I only felt a thump like someone patting your shoulder. Almost without meaning to, I backhanded him as I looked at the two men in a pile. I felt a sticky wetness on my hand. I turned to see that I’d sliced his throat clean through. My hands might look normal, but the claws were very much still there.

“Well fuck.” I looked around but could only thank the stars that the street was completely empty. Which made sense since they’d jumped me first. I quickly double checked the surroundings then moved to the two men still alive. With two quick jabs of my pointer fingers, I impaled their foreheads and killed them instantly.

Looking at my mess, I only shook my head. The red tint was forming the edge of my vision, but it was still at the level I could control. I was rational through the entire fight, many because they just weren’t worthy opponents. I held my hand out and absorbed the bodies into my Storage. I would harvest them later when I was in a place, I wouldn’t have to worry about the Police Core being called on me.

“Where was I? Oh, right.” I turned and kept on my way to the armor store. 

~~~

“This is the best we have in leather.”

“I see. How much did you say it was again?”

“Fifteen thousand dollars.”

My heart bled at the amount. I needed to go with leather as my fighting style, if you could call it that, required freer movement than a suit of armor would allow. That, and I could adjust it slightly to match my feminine features. Thankfully, I was as flat as a washboard so I didn’t have to worry about my chest, but the common differences between the two genders gave me issues. 

“Very well.” I pulled out the one of Friz’s cards and handed it to the manager. “I wonder if I could get Azaria to make me something that would change with me.”

I looked at the mirror in front of me. As I was wearing Friz’s body, the leather armor was set to his size. I could feel it on my skin, and it felt like it might come off at any second. Still, it was a nice set of armor. Made from Hell Wolf hide, it was quite tough and fire and earth magic resistant. A good upgrade from my crappy Level one rabbit hide armor I got for basic protection as a harvester.

“Thank you for your purchase! We hope you come again,” the manager said as he returned from the register.

I just nodded and made my way out. A few streets down, I ducked into an alley. I tightened every clasp and belt on the armor and even added a few others to make it tighter. I really would have to see about either have Azaria modify this armor or getting someone to special make one when I take a female form.

With my armor situation taken care of, I moved on to my next task. I opened Friz’s phone and looked through his contacts. I found what I was looking for. A black market monster part dealer. Hopefully, my plan worked and I could get parts of monsters via this route as well. Memorizing the route, I left the alley. 

An hour and three attempts to mug me later, I made it to the location. I still couldn’t believe I was jumped three times. Did I give off some sort of kill me sign? With the last one, I just rushed and stabbed my arm through the guy’s chest. I was quite done with it by that point. At least I did learn that I could absorb the blood splattered on me into my storage.

I just shook my head and looked at the warehouse in front of me. It seemed to scream that unlawful things were taking place here. I went up to the door and knocked. 

“What do you want? Ah, Friz! I heard your party wiped. We all thought you were dead.”

“Nope. It will take more than walking dolls to kill me,” I said giving a cocky grin.

“Get in here and have a beer.”

“Thanks man!” 

Once past the guard, I took in the sight in front of me. The sight reminded me of a fish or wet market that I’d seen on television before the world experienced the Aether Shift. The guard gave me a massive slap on the back nearly causing me to go into berserk mode before I managed to calm down.

Time to do some shopping. I activated my harvest skill causing the entire market to light up like Christmas. I moved over to the first seller and took in the advertised monster parts. Everything certainly lit up but it was all White which was the lowest level of part I’d seen so far. 

“Interested in some kobold parts?” the shopkeeper asked when he saw me looking.

“Interested yes. Short of funds, also yes,” I replied with a smile.

“Fair enough.”

I window shopped more for appearance than anything. With harvest, I could see all the parts that were even worth looking at. I also treated it like a game. I started at the bottom and worked my way up. After about half an hour, I got to my first Purple part, which was the highest I’d gotten so far. 

“What is this?” I asked once I got to the shop. 

A well-off man took a pull on a cigar. “That be an Incubus’s, well, tool. Any man that consumes it can literally walk through the streets and the women will throw themselves at him. The effect only lasts for twelve hours though.”

I nodded. That was impressive. “Is it a charm or pheromone based?”

“The few magical researchers that have looked into say a bit of both.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-five thousand. Cash.”

“Ah, maybe next time then,” I said waving my hand over the box as if dismissing it.

I moved on to the next shop. This one had several purples on display. One even had the word Dragon written on the plague in front of it. “Is this really a piece of a dragon!? When did you get that?” I couldn’t remember a dragon being defeated. They were one of the reasons the United States wasn’t a single country anymore.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” the woman manning the shop said with a smirk.

I glared at her, but I couldn’t afford it either way. I looked at some of the other parts, but they were all on prominent display and one even hit six digits. I nodded to the lady and quickly left her shop. Looking around, I checked to make sure I didn’t miss anything. In a side room to the edge of the market, I noticed a blue glow. I had never seen blue before, thus I didn’t know if it was better or worse than purple. 

I made my way over to the room and saw it was just a bunch of boxes stacked up. I moved over to the nearest shop keeper. “What’s up with that room?”

“Ah. That’s where parts that have spoiled go. They get sent for disposal tomorrow. Feel free to take anything you want from it, its all trash anyways.”

“Thanks!”

I went back to the room as I saw Purple and Orange light leaking from several of the boxes. I went to each of them and absorbed them with my storage without really looking at them. I finally got to the box that was leaking blue light, the only reason I managed to see anything was the lid was still off it. 

What looked like a shriveled heart lay on a pile of other organs. Even shriveled it was the size of my head. Whatever this came from had to have been massive. I moved it to my storage then left the room. “You were right! Damn, I was hoping to make a quick buck.”

“You aren’t the first, and I doubt you’ll be the last.”

I moved back to the entrance. “Nothing really interesting today,” I said as he pulled the door open.

“With that doll dungeon popping up, the authorities are being even more of a bag of dicks than usual. Watch your back.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

Leaving the warehouse district, I made for the first hotel I found on the map app. Even then, I still got jumped twice. The police better thank me for cleaning up their streets later. I never realized it was this bad. I finally could breathe easier once I shut the hotel door behind me. 

I pulled the heart from my storage and placed it on the table. I pulled a cord I’d grabbed somewhere from my storage and bit down on it. With a deep breath, I used harvest. The heart glowed blue before it melted and flowed up my arm. 

I expected it, but the surge of pain was still almost more than I could handle. I bit clean through the cord in the first few seconds. With all my will power, I stopped myself from screaming. I didn’t need the police called. Half an hour later, the pain finally died. 

I pulled the first item I’d gotten from the market. I’d slipped the Incubus organ into my storage when I had the chance. It wasn’t my first time seeing the male organ, the Kyle incident beside, but this was still the most impressive one even with the internet included. Still it gave a purple glow meaning it had powerful properties. With a grimace, I quickly absorbed it as well.

The pain lasted half the time as the heart. Dropping onto the bed covered in sweat I slowly reached down and felt that area. I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt the noticeable lack of any equipment down there. Deciding to check my status before I absorbed anything else, I pulled my screen up. 

Lance Teron

Age:20

Level: 17

Race: Human

Type: Harvester

Aether: 1000/1200

Skills: Harvest

Harvests:

Heart of the Chimera – Breath of Fire

Incubus Tool – Mental Fortitude

Scale of the Corrupted Lizard – 50% Poison Resistance

Goblin’s Soul 

Malice Dark Vision Concentrated Breathing Dominate  Black Heart’s Armor Poison Breath Natural Weapon 

Eat Anything  Durable Keen Hearing  Gluttony

Human’s Heart – Chaos

Human’s Lung – Fortitude

Human’s Brain (x2) 

Fire Water

Tunnel Rat Tendon – Scurry (+2)

Lower Mimic Storage Sac – Storage

Achievements:

Trading With Chaos – You achieved something few could claim. While it might appear to be dumb luck, even luck has a place in the universe. Aether gain +1 per hour.

Solo Hunter – You defeated a dungeon on your own. Very few can claim the same. Great achievements deserve great rewards. Aether +1000

I started laughing when I saw my status use the word tool for the incubus body part. I might have laughed for nearly five minutes before I finally calmed down. I concentrated and blew out a poof of smoke that was trailed by some flames. I quickly closed my mouth incase it set off any fire alarms. Glancing at the clock, I set an alarm on my phone having the chance to charge it for the first time in two weeks then closed my eyes. Today was a good day.