M'Lady: Peerless Warlord (Patreon)

   When status screens finally descended across the world to throw every nation into chaos, one man was ready.

Lvl 1 Jeremy Baugh     HP 68/100

STR 1     INT 1

DEX 0     WIS 0

CON 1    CHA -3

Delusion XI

   Heh... I’ve been waiting.

   A meaty fist clenched tight in a grandiose gesture of triumph, nearly crumpling his can of Amp Game Fuel and spilling cherry-burst flavored syrup across the campus sidewalk. An appropriate libation, perhaps, to pour out in commemoration of the end of the old world, rotten with ignorance and hypocrisy, but the man’s superior mental acuity stayed his hand. He’d likely need every last sip of energy for the trials that were to come.

   This. This was his moment of glory, the beginning of his epoch where he would ascend high above the mundane masses of ignorant sheep and take his rightful place in history as the peerless warlord. The peerless invincible warlord of all time.

   The venerable, sacred grounds from whence he would begin his ascension to power? A common community college, extraordinary only in how exceedingly ordinary it was. A nondescript sidewalk path bordered by boring hedges, between the dining hall and the Wright building; two squat, boxy structures of particularly uninspired architecture. Some would be discouraged by such lowly beginnings—he, on the other hand, knew that the hand of fate had reached into the embers of the ephemeral to pull out the fire of eternity. His heroic journey began here.

   “Uhhh,” a weak, girlish voice desecrated the sanctity of his perfect moment. “Hey, are you seein’ this?”

   Disdainfully turning his attention to the hedge-lined sidewalk behind him, he saw—perfection. There was in fact another lost soul crossing this barren breadth of land between dining hall and Wright; she was a Goddess, immaculate and pure in every way. He intuited immediately that, because of her heartbreaking beauty, he would never be able to fully place his trust in her. And also, that they were destined to be together forever.

   The first, quintessential aspect of her that sprang forward to his scrutiny—for indeed, they preceded her—were her twin peaks, together forming a pert and proud bosom that jutted forth from her svelt figure like a pair of felt fedoras situated side by side on a vintage coatrack. Massive, mystifying mammaries, breasts so utterly beguiling in shape and form that it took every terrible iota of his admittedly impressive intellectual acumen to continue cataloging the rest of this tawdry specimen’s... less immediately relevant physical traits. I mean, these puppies were huge. C-cups, at the very least. Maybe even more.

   “There’s this thing just floating in front of me,” the effervescent enchantress sung sweetly to him. “It has my name at the top. Are you seeing this?”

   Each whispery tingling vowel and consonant rolling off her perfect pink tongue sent scintillating shivers of euphoria up the back of his black leather trench-coat. It was the voice of an ASMR angel, and each word, every feminine-scented breath was like she was vaping out the clouds of heaven. Heaven isn’t real, though. It’s part of a made-up fairy-tale used to shackle simpletons.

   When she flicked her eyes to me—uh, I mean, when she flicked her eyes to him—they were shimmering sacrosanct cerulean irises, awash with perplexed shades of uncertainty. Her features? Prose cannot wax poetic with succinction enough to express such an impossibly exquisite visage; suffice to say she stole the best features between Taylor Swift and Kim Possible. Yeah, and there was a status screen in front of her, too. Whatever.

   “Hello?” Serendipitous sirensong continued to seduce his sensibilities. “Can you see this thing?”

   Can I see that thing? He gawped at her, incredulous at her line of questioning. Had his inscrutable powers of observation ever been suspect? Could they even be questioned? Nonsense. Was the— 

   “Hey. Hello?” She interrupted. “Box, uh, floating square thingy? Right in front of me? Do you see it?”

   “I—uh, y-yeah,” the man answered with charming confidence. “I got one, too. Um. Also. I mean.”

   “Do you know what the numbers and letters mean?”

   Heh. How could he put it into words? Reality in its entirety was on the cusp of change, and now it was time for gamers to rise up. The world she thought she knew was gone, and now her, and everyone like her, would rely on him to survive. His knowledge was now paramount to— 

   “Oh. Nevermind,” the girl laughed, tapping at her phone. “They’re game stats, like a Dungeons and Dragon sorta thing. Everyone’s blowing up Twitter about it. Uhh, sorry for buggin’ you, I guess.”

Lvl 7 Jennifer Cross     HP 94/100

STR 5     INT 9

DEX 9     WIS 4

CON 5    CHA 10

Dance III (Contemporary)

Persuasion I (Pathos)

   Despite the devious attempts of this conniving seductress to distract him with her wanton womanly wiles, his steadfast, stoic resolve rewarded him with a glimpse of her personal status screen! Truly, few nuances could escape his searching gaze, and now? Now she was laid bare, the sum total of her every weakness aggregated before his superior mind in the form of… 

   ...Now, hold on a damn minute here, what the hell? She’s starting at level seven and has skills? Seriously? She has ten fucking charisma?! Who needs a goddamn persuasion skill when she has ten fucking charisma?! Even I, the future King of all things Living and Dead, am only starting with charisma three!

   The tragic veil of a bitter smile fell over the normally sanguine features of his Lordly countenance. So, this was how things would be. It was only natural, he supposed, that the weight of his greatness would strain this cursed system, and that it would in turn attempt to bring him into balance with the mundane mediocrity of the puling ignorant masses. But, to think that even he, in the splendor of his full regalia, would only enumerate to a three…

   Wait a fucking minute. What’s with the minus symbol in front of my three?

( Next: Status: Happening )