Greed God chapter 1 (Patreon)

January 3rd 2016 Lord Mansion 8:00 PM EDT

I was bored. Which, you know, pretty standard for me, but still not  something I actually enjoyed. One would expect that being the son of THE  Maxwell Lord would make things interesting. They would unfortunately be  wrong. Metropolis in general was pretty stagnant most of the time, with  the exception of the crazy villain rampages and alien invasions, and we  lived on the outskirts so we mostly avoided those, but between those  big events my life was basically just a haze of hedonistic pleasure.

Which  don't get me wrong, was pretty cool sometimes, but there's really only  so much sex you can have before your body physically can't keep up  anymore, and then you're bored AND tired. Today was one of my days off  so to speak. It was a Sunday so I didn't have to go to school and I had  decided to laze around the pool today on my own instead of with  whichever cheerleader I felt like bringing home today. I just wasn't  feeling anything today.

Which was was why I literally squawked and fell out of my innertube and into the water when I heard a voice ring in my head.

[Emptiness detected. Activating Greed System.]

I  came up sputtering, whirling around the pool to try to see what the  fuck had said that, but there was nothing. I was completely alone. I  raised my voice "Hello?" I heard absolutely nothing, but I kept my guard  up just in case. Telepaths were a thing in Metropolis even if they  weren't exactly common, and my old man had made quite a few enemies in  his day.

[Activation  complete. The Greed System is a unique power that only the host can  obtain, the host must obtain valuable objects and items. The more the  host obtains the more Greed Points (GP) are accumulated. GP can be used  to merge together valuable items to make even more valuable treasures.  The more valuable the result of the merge, the more GP is required. Go  forth and collect and merge the most valuable items in the world, host!]

I  flinched as the words once again slipped through my head like someone  was speaking them into my ear. I still didn't see anyone anywhere. I  mulled over what the voice had said. Greed System? That sounded...neat.  I'd been pretty bored for most of the day, and I didn't see a reason not  to play along with this. Worst case nothing happened and it turned out I  was nuts, but then, if that was the case that ship had already sailed  so fuck it.

I climbed out of the  pool, toweling off as I headed into my room. My pool was on a large  balcony outside my own floor of the house. Dad wasn't one who enjoyed me  being underfoot, and tended to spend most of his time on the top floor  of the house, leaving me to my own designs for the most part. I headed  into my room, looking around to find something I didn't care much about  to test out...whatever the hell this was.

First thing was first, I had to see what I was working with. I cleared my throat. "Greed System, give me my current GP?" I wasn't sure if that was a thing but hell, I might as well just ask right?

[The  host has 100 GP available, given as a complimentary gift with  installation. The hosts worldly possessions were given as gifts by  another entity, and as such do not increase the GP value. Buy, steal, or  take valuable items to increase your GP host! Allow your greed to drive  you host, all things will belong to you!]

That  was interesting, annoying, and a bit unsettling all at once. I made a  mental note to try to curb the obviously predatory and somewhat creepy  voice that now lived in my head, but for now I had bigger fish to fry. I  looked through my room, trying to find something I could use to create a  new more interesting treasure. There was plenty of stuff in here but it  was mostly valuable and honestly with only a hundred greed points I  didn't want to experiment with anything I actually liked. Who knew how  much a hundred points was even worth.

In  the end I found a crappy mall goth knife I had lying around and a  relatively sturdy gold paperweight. I set the two things on the table in  front of me. I stared at them for a minute. I tried willing something  to happen but it didn't work. Annoying but fine, the voice in my head  wanted to talk I would talk. "System, how many greed points do I need to  merge these two items?"

[Materials  detected. Fantasy themed knife- Value estimation: J rank. Gold  paperweight- Value estimation: E rank. Resulting item value: H rank.  Cost 100 GP.]

I  cursed. What the actual fuck? "System, what the hell? Why is merging  some shitty knife so expensive. I don't want to blow my entire point  total making some blinged out pigsticker." I wasn't even sure the damn  thing would be useful, who the fuck needs a gold knife?

[Material:  Gold contains inherent value. Gold's unsuitability for a weapon  resulted in the resulting item being on the lower end of the possible  spectrum, bringing the item's value down to H rank. H rank materials  require a hundred points to merge.]

I  let out a frustrated groan but honestly that made sense. I wasn't going  to say that having a big ass knife like that entirely made of gold  wouldn't net me a chunk of cash. Assuming that was what I'd have gotten.  Who knew. I got rid of the paperweight and went hunting around for  something else to use. I basically turned my room upside down looking  for something I could use, but everything was either complicated  electronics or somehow valuable.

Finally  I settled on a random half empty beer bottle. Because...well, honestly  it was the least valuable thing I could find. I brought it over to the  table and set it down. "Ok system, how about this? How many GP to make  something out of this?" I gestured down to the two items dramatically,  despite probably not needing to because I was talking to a voice in my  head.

[Materials  detected- Fantasy themed knife- Value estimation: J rank. Half empty  bottle of Heineken beer- Value estimation: J rank. Resulting item value:  I rank. Cost 10 GP.]

Ok,  that told me a few things. First of all J rank was literal trash. Which  made sense because that was a ten dollar knife I got off a hobby  website. Secondly it told me that each rank the resulting item went up  resulted in an increase of ten times in terms of point cost. Which meant  making something J rank would cost 1 GP, except considering the whole  beer bottle thing J rank was probably the lowest it could go. I nodded.  "Ok, merge them."

[Treasure  creation initiated. Congratulations on creating your first treasure  host first time creation bonus applied, rank of treasure raised by one.]

I  cursed again. Fuck! If I had known that I would have made something H  rank in the first place or even waited to make something higher rank  than that. I sighed, well no use crying over spilled milk. There was a  flash of orange gold light and the knife and bottle vanished, replaced  by a new blade. The new knife was made of green glass and I could see  liquid sloshing inside the blade. "System any chance you could tell me  what the fuck that thing is?"

[Appraisal  function activated. Treasure detected. Liquor Sword- H rank: A  viciously sharp knife imbued with an intoxicating poison. Upon insertion  into the enemy injects an intoxicating substance into their  bloodstream, causing immediate dizziness and a feeling of vertigo. Three  uses remaining.]

Ok,  well...cool. First of all the knife actually looked pretty awesome, the  green glass blade was razor sharp and wickedly curved with a cool  tracework of thorns across it. Second of all it proved my Greed System  actually worked. I also knew that the thing could appraise stuff for  value, which would be pretty useful in the future. I still had ninety  points left so I got up and started looking around for some more stuff  to merge.

Since I needed to make  I grade stuff all my materials needed to be J grade, which meant I  needed more garbage tier stuff. I settled on a bottle of vitamins and a  small tub of crappy muscle building powder, because they were pretty  much the cheapest things I owned. "Alright system, try these two."

[Treasure  creation initiated. Materials detected -Vitamin A vitamin tablets-  Value estimation: J rank. Mighty Mox Muscle powder- Value estimation: J  rank. Resulting item value: I rank. Cost 10 GP]

I  nodded. "Alright merge them, them appraise." I didn't feel like waiting  until it was done to find out what it did, so I just skipped a step.  Seemed like the easiest way to do it. The same orange gold light  enveloped the two items and blended them together in a flash, leaving a  sleek looking black pill bottle on the table.

[Appraisal  function activated. Treasure detected. Mighty Mox Muscle Tablets- I  rank: A special pill created for accelerated muscle building. Increases  rate of muscle growth by ten times from exercise done while under the  influence of the pills. Functional pill uses: one per day.]

I  whooped with joy. That was what I wanted to see! I could use this  system to make stuff I could take to get stronger, or even give away or  sell to get more GP or recruit people. I considered doing some more  fusing but decided against it for now. What I really needed was to get  some more GP so I could make some REALLY useful items. Hell just look at  the liquor sword, that thing was awesome, H rank was clearly a step  above I rank in terms of effect.

I  slipped on a coat and stowed the liquor sword in a box that I decided  to carry under my arm, the thing was way to sharp to keep in my coat or  pants or anything, and then headed for the garage. My dad's garage was  under the house. Our whole place was build on a hill and the garage was  below the basement level and let out at the bottom of the hill itself. I  took the elevator down to the bottom level and stepped out into the  garage, stopping at the peg board full of keys to decide which car to  take.

I had a  tiny bit of hope taking one would count as stealing and give me some  serious GP, but apparently since my dad let me use his stuff picking up  the first key I found had no effect. It was annoying but I wasn't too  upset about it because I knew exactly where I was going next. I had to  get some GP so I was going to break into the nearest store and steal  everything I could get my hands on. Then I might try to sell this glass  knife, because honestly what else was I going to do with it?

I  grabbed the keys to a towncar, easily the least noticeable machine my  dad even had in this place, and hit the unlock button to make the car  chirp, sliding into the seat and tossing the box with the knife (or  maybe sword? It was hard to say, since it was about midway between the  two, but I guessed it made sense to go with the description) into the  passenger seat. I started up the car, checked to make sure I had mi  license on me (I'd been pulled over a few too many times and if they  caught me without it it would be a hassle) and then peeled out down the  exit tunnel to the garage, hitting the button to raise the gate as I  went. Look out Metropolis.