Greed God chapter 93 (Patreon)

January 31st 2016 Gemworld 8:00 PM EDT

The  knowledge that we were stranded in another dimension temporarily was  understandably not comforting to most of my crew. Zee seemed kind of  excited, and Cherry didn't care, but Barbie looked pretty annoyed.  "So...we're stuck in some alternate world while Gotham is being consumed  by who knows what kind of horrible monsters? You got us here! Why can't  you get us home?" She sounded panicked at the very idea of what was  going on, and honestly I got it. Her dad was a police commissioner, he  was probably going to be pretty much screwed during the  kingdompocalypse.

Still, I put a hand on her shoulder.  "Hey, calm down. I'm not happy about this either Barbie, but we WILL get  back. The pendant has a function to take us home, we just need to find  someone with the Amethyst bloodline to use it. In the meantime..." I  grimaced. I didn't want to mention my ability in front of Barbie. She  still didn't know about it, but I did want to get in touch with Dinah  and Whisper and make sure they were ok, and I knew at least one surefire  way to do that. "I have a way to check in on everyone."

I  had my cell phone on me, and while there was no possible chance it  would get service in another reality, it WOULD still be upgradeable. I  was guessing at F rank I could probably manage to get in touch with the  house. I needed to warn all my girls to stay in the Palace where it was  safe until we got back. Of course, I also needed to find some actual  materials for that. I had about twenty five thousand points from recent  deliveries from Galaxy, but it might be a while until I could stock up,  so finding something more valuable to use as mats would be the clear  move here.

Barbie looked suspicious, and Zee looked  interested, since neither of them knew about my ability, just my  lifestorm wyrmkin powers. Luckily Cherry was around and she knew how my  abilities worked (minus the whole points thing, I'd never told anyone  about that). My blonde psycho phantom decided to distract everyone by  pointing out the obvious. "We should probably figure out some shelter or  something. I don't think anything here is going to be a threat to us  with Waylon and Sally around but it's probably not a great idea to risk  it."

My redheads suspicion was allayed as she processed  that were were standing under the moonlight in a purple forest on an  alien world basically. She didn't mention it being a good idea because  Cherry was the one who said it, but her competetive streak was clearly  aggravated by the comment. "We should be able to put together some kind  of temporary structure for ourselves tonight. We can start looking  around in tomorrow." She looked at Zee with distaste, but clearly found  her less objectionable than Cherry because she actually looked at the  sorceress. "If we get some of these trees together do you think you can  use magic to fit them together?"

That wasn't a bad plan  actually, though if we stayed in the structure more than a night I was  just going to upgrade the damn thing at least once or twice until it was  livable. Still, once Zee nodded Waylon, Sally, and I got to work  tearing up trees and stacking them together in a loose square shape. Zee  started applying spells to take the roots off and change the shape of  the logs so they fit together, and within probably an hour we had a  functional, if somewhat rough shelter. We even lashed together a bunch  of branches to set on top of the hut, and Zee made sure to leave an  opening at one corner we could use as a door.

In the end  we wound up with a pretty basic shitty house, and an application of my  lifestorm powers generated just enough wind to blow all the leaves and  shit outside. I hadn't realized that was a thing I could do but it was  good to know. Once that was done Zee lit a fire (which was blue and  generated no smoke thankfully) and we all sat down to take stock of the  situation. Despite Cherry's save, I was positive we would need my  ability on this trip. I'd worry more about consequences when we were  home.

I cleared my throat. "So, like I said, I have a way  to reach home, and to do some other things. I have a method of combining  objects together. Barbie, I assume you've suspected I had some source  for powerful objects, but I don't. The smart glasses I sell and most of  my interesting gear is self made. It has limits, I can only combine a  certain number of objects per day, and those limits are more extreme the  more powerful I make the object in question. Still it lets me make  magical treasures that will absolutely help me get in touch with  everyone back in Gotham, and maybe even help you get in touch with your  dad to send him to the house. My place is protected, so he should be  safe there."

I was hoping the offer would distract her  from asking too many questions. I was also hoping that claiming to have a  limited number of merges available per day would hide how my points  worked. I didn't want anyone figuring out the actual source of my powers  or how they worked. The less they understood about them the less likely  someone would hear a story or something and manage to figure out what  the Greed System actually was. I was pretty sure the emergency nature of  the situation would take up her attention for a while, so all I needed  to do was use this time to make sure Barbie would keep my secrets. The  girl was crazy about me, wrapping her around my finger a bit more wasn't  that big an ask.

I don't know if it  was because of her dad, or because of the situation, but the string of  questions I expected from Barbie didn't come. She looked...almost  vindicated. It occurred to me that she probably had at least some idea,  which I guess I should have expected. Still, she obviously didn't  ACTUALLY know anything about my powers or she would have noticed all the  bullshit, so whatever she had deduced wasn't accurate enough to worry  about. She shook off the ideas she was having visibly before forcing  herself to focus. "Ok. Well if you have a limited number of combinations  I assume that means you need better materials." She grimaced a bit at  being forced to ask but finally turned to Zee again. "Zatanna, do you  have a spell that can find magical objects?"

The  sorceress, who had been shockingly polite to my redhead after literal  years of constant bitchiness, held up a hand and waggled it back and  forth. "Kind of. I have a spell that reveals magic density, but it  doesn't really get into causes. It should be useful for materials  though. Does it have to be natural magic though? Like, if I cast a spell  on a tree would that count as a magical object you can use? Does it  even have to be magic?" She seemed fascinated by my abilities, which I'd  been expecting. Zee was obsessed with learning more about magic, and  getting excited about this kind of thing was pretty on brand for her.

Still,  she made a decent point. "Yeah, that should work as a material, and no,  it doesn't have to be magic. Anything made of extremely high level  material works, hell even tech would be viable, but I doubt we're going  to find any high ranking technology lying around Gemworld, unless I've  massively misjudged this place. Then again who knows, we've seen a tiny  portion of one forest. We can keep an eye out either way." I had this  place pegged as a magic fantasy land, but I was kind of jumping to  conclusions. "In any case, tomorrow is going to have to be soon enough  to reach out to our people in Gotham. Getting lost in the dark woods  seems like a bad plan when we don't know what's out there, like you  said."

That  last comment was aimed at Barbie. Who begrudgingly nodded. She didn't  want to wait obviously, but since it was her idea she was going to have  to live with it. In the spirit of helping with that though, I decided  the aformentioned house hut upgrade would be a good way to take  everyone's mind off of things. Plus I was kind of hoping there would be a  bed, I wasn't an animal, I had no desire to sleep in the dirt.

I  tried to redirect their attention. "How about we try and fix this place  up so I can show you how it works. This is just small enough that my  power should work on it." Another lie to hide how my powers worked  wouldn't hurt anything. Everyone seemed up for it, so we all headed  outside. The whole lost in the dark thing wouldn't be an issue if we  stayed close at least. I appraised the hut itself first thing, not  entirely sure what rank it was at.

[Appraisal  function activated. Treasure detected. Makeshift hut- H rank. A crudely  constructed shelter made from makeshift Gemworld trees and magic.]

That  was fair. It was basically a full sized lincoln logs house, but still H  was actually pretty good. I appraised one of the trees to get an idea  why.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Wonderbark Pine- I rank. A species of trees native to Gemworld with magical sap and unusually tough bark.]

That  explained it. It also made this easier. "Alright Waylon, tear up  another tree. Zee, I want you to put whatever enchantments you can on  the thing to make it stronger and harder to spot and...whatever else you  can think of." Walyon headed off to get another pine, and I noted that  he'd transformed during the party, which meant Barbie knew,,,something.  Maybe that he was Killer Croc? Hard to say given the changes. He dragged  the tree over and Zee cast a few spells on the thing before I appraised  it again.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected.  Enchanted Wonderbark Pine-H rank. A Wonderbark pine enhanced with  powerful magic to increase its durability, camouflage, and elasticity by  the magic Zatanna Zatara.]

That  would do it, I focused on the two items, and merged them together,  concentrating on a nice and livable place, preferable something bigger  than what we had. I initiated the merge, and winced at the light show,  but there was no real way to avoid that. I used up a thousand Greed  Points and The entire place...shifted. The light expanded, the walls  thinning and rising as the shitty hut changed form into something  altogether different. By the time it was done, there was a small cottage  sitting in the forest (small for a cottage but still much bigger than  the hut given the walls weren't three feet thick anymore). I appraised  the new place.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Wonderpine  Cottage- G rank. A small but cozy house in the forests of gemworld.  Crafted expertly from Wonderbark Pine, the surprisingly spacious  interior is stocked with comfortable furniture made from the same.  Surprisingly durable and difficult to spot in the forest.]

I  turned to the opther with a grin, gesturing to the small yet still two  story cottage with the thatched roof that was now occupying the empty  space taken up by all the trees we'd uprooted. "Like I said, this will  probably be a bit more comfortable. It's the most powerful object I can  make, and this will leave me tapped out for the day, but it should be  worth it." I decided G rank would be a good baseline for objects until I  had a decent source of points here. I still had twenty four thousand GP  left and G ranked items were nothing to sneeze at despite only costing a  thousand.

The last thing I  needed was to go into crazy mode again, though I did need to talk to  Crassus when I had time about why the hell I'd been acting like Gotham  was my personal property. In the meantime, I led my absolutely stunned  group into the surprisingly comfortable if sparsely furnished house,  made my way upstairs and dropped down onto the bed I was happy to see  was there. The description had been right too. This place WAS  surprisingly spacious.