“Gotta go, Lockey Poo!” Steve says. “Stay golden!”
He disappears and reappears in front of Vesper, and Debbie turns back to me. Despite the pain in my body, I grin and brace myself.
“Here, Debbie, Debbie,” I coo, raising my new battleaxe.
She barrels through the snow at me and despite my newfound weapon, she hits me hard enough to knock the wind from my already painful lungs.
STRENGTH: 15
“Ow,” I grunt, dragging myself to my feet. “Motherfucker.”
Debbie rushes toward me and I have exactly two seconds to raise the battleaxe and slam it into her shoulder before we both go flying backward away from each other. I leap to my feet, an influx of adrenaline slamming through my body so that it’s me who’s rushing Debbie now, screaming as I slam the battleaxe into her one hit after another. Bones break. Blood spurts. She howls in anger as she tries to fight back, but seems to be losing strength. All the while, my strength goes up and down, changing with my skill and buffs. Vesper is screaming something, but I can’t hear her over my own desperate battle cry.
Debbie stops fighting back, but I keep hitting, painting the snow red, fighting for my life, fighting for Vesper’s life. I scream, and scream, and scream, and hit, and hit, and hit.
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
Congrats. You killed little Debbie. Better grab your loot and get out of here before big Deborah shows up. She won’t be happy to see her baby sister dead even if she does respawn! You spilled enough blood to make a horrifying Jackson Pollock painting!
REWARD:New fine leather armor! The breastplate and shoulders are made of moose hide and it’s lined with little Debbie’s snow-white yeti fur to fight the cold, you horrible monster, you!
I swipe away the notification and another pops up.
NEW INVENTORY AQUIRED:
FINE LEATHER YETI FUR ARMOR
15 HARROW COINS
2 SHARDS
HEALING POTION WITH 3 SERVINGS
I grab the potion out of my inventory and click off the notification. One final notification box pops up.
NEW TIER UPGRADE AVAILABLE
I wheeze as the pain starts to fall back in and pop the cork off the healing potion before I read the upgrade notification. Vesper comes scrambling over to me. She’s saying something, but I can’t hear her over the ringing in my ears. The first taste of the potion is bitter and makes my gag. Once I take the full serving, warmth starts to spread through my body and the pain blessedly numbs.
“Thank the Harrow,” I croak, pressing a hand to my head and offering it to her. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” she chokes. “Are you?—”
“I’m okay,” I choke out. “I can take a few hits.”
“A few hits?” she repeats. “Locke, she beat the shit out of you. I thought you were going to die.” She glances at the battleaxe in my hand. “Where did you get that?”
I hold it up. “Cipher managed to get us a mysterious Luxe benefactor lady. She sent a loot crate.” I look at the notification again. “It says I can level up.”
Her eyes widen. “Already? Don’t you need?—”
“A thousand XP? Yeah,” I choke out, cracking my neck. “I got four hundred XP in this fight.”
She gasps. “You’re serious?”
I nod and click the notification open on my interface.
NEW TIER UPGRADE AVAILABLE
