Chaos 6 (1/2)

“Wait, hold on!” screamed Fizzy. “There’s no such thing as a God of Probability!”

“Masaka!” screamed Joseph.

“... What?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” apologized Mulder. “I thought we were playing ‘Scream random things that make no sense.’ It’s one of my favorite games, you know.”

“I was doing no such thing!”

“Yes you were. I assure you I’m very much real.”

“Then prove it!” insisted the gnome.

“Try and say my name three times in a row.”

“Tyrone, Jose, Amy. Now wh-”

She froze mid sentence. The gnome was absolutely sure she was saying the name right, but it always came out differently. Even thinking back on it now she was certain she was referring to the same entity, despite that making no logical sense.

“Not convinced! You could still be messing with me! I won’t be fooled by some stupid illusions! I mean, I’ve even never heard of a God of Uncertainty!”

The same oddity seemed to apply to his title, too. She went and called him the ‘Goddess of Chance’ not ‘God of Randomness’ as he introduced himself just moments ago.

Daniel smiled back at her from his brick.

“Just because you haven’t heard of me doesn’t mean I don’t exist. Just like syphilis. Or the brain-sucking aliens from Ulk’Narob. I assure you not only am I real, but I’m perfectly capable of wrecking your shit with barely even a thought if you don’t watch your mouth. Like so.”

*Snap*

Linda snapped her trees, causing the gnome’s head and neck to disappear, leaving behind nothing but smooth skin between her shoulders. Her arms immediately went to grab her missing appendage, but failed miserably. It’s as if it was never there to begin with. Her headless body started squirming and flailing around, completely unable to deal with this situation.

*Snap*

Her head popped up from between her shoulders like it was a jack-in-the-box.

“Aaarh! Haah, haah, haah!” she panted.

“Are we clear, young Fizzlesprocket?”

“Haah, haah. Yes, crystal clear. Mister Goddess of Chaos, sir.”

“Much better. Now then, Boxxy. Ah, now that we’re face-to-face, this is a bit awkward. Talking to a chest like this is a bit weird for me.”

The gnome nearly made a comment about how hypocritical that sounded coming from a basket with legs, but held it back.

“Here, let’s try this!”

*Snap*

A finger-snapping noise was heard. The chest next to Fizzy flickered out of existence and a small naked child appeared in its place. It had brown skin, snow-white hair, red eyes and appeared to be about 6 or 7 years old. The face was oddly androgynous, making it hard to tell if it was male or female, but it was undeniably cute. It was making a sweet, innocent smile and had a thoroughly vacant look in its eyes.

“How’s that?” asked Kerry.

The child blinked a few times and stared at its fingers, then its lower body. Fizzy followed its eyesight and ended up staring at its crotch almost involuntarily. She almost turned her face away in shame, but realized that was a pointless gesture. After all, the child had nothing between its legs but smooth skin.

“Feels weird,” it said, with a fittingly neutral voice.

“Well, it’s only temporary, so please bear with it.”

“Okay.”

“B-Boxxy?” stammered the gnome. “Is that you?”

“Yes,” answered the child matter-of-factly.

She turned around to stare at the God of Anarchy with accusatory eyes.

“Ah, this is simply what the Mimic would look like if it were human,” explained Estel. “This is merely an image I dredged up from its subconscious, so don’t look at me like that, okay? I swear I’m not into little kids or anything, alright?! I’m a firm believer in the glory of large chests!”

Kishralbadaz the Inheritor stifled a giggle at its own bad pun. She then leaned forward, put her salamis on the table and looked right at the Mimic. Which was impressive considering she had 3 and a half heads.

“Anyway, now that that’s over with I can finally have a proper chat with you.”

“You know me?” asked Boxxy.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve spoken, you know.”

“It’s not?”

The Mimic was pretty sure it would remember if it met something bizarre like Russel before.

“Hmm, technically speaking, I was the only one doing the talking at the time, so calling it a conversation would be hard. I also said some hurtful things, but I hope you’ll forgive me. I get just a little bit ABSOLUTELY LIVID when some random box tries to steal my dungeon core for no god-damned reason.”

“... Oh.”

It would appear the mysterious and slightly annoying entity behind that dungeon core had finally revealed itself.

“And sorry for trying to blow you up like that. It was uncalled for and totally my bad.”

“It’s okay. Got many tasty Levels.”

“Hahaha, that you did. I must say, you genuinely surprised me that day. Not everyone would be willing to blow up an entire city if the opportunity presented itself.”

“Blow up a city?!” butted in Fizzy. “You’re telling me this thing really did cause that Calamity?!”

“Uhm… Yes and no. It’s complicated.”

“And you don’t mind?!”

“Why would I?”

“Don’t you care that so many people died?!”

“Do you?”

“Of course I do!”

“Really? Then I suppose you mourned and prayed for every last one of those 8,235 souls?”

“Err…”

“You only selfishly mourned your own father and brother, did you not? You’d probably put the incident completely out of your tiny mind if those two weren’t tangentially involved.”

“...”

Jack was right on the money. Even though Fizzy understood it was, objectively speaking, a horrible catastrophe, she just couldn’t bring herself to truly care about some humans being killed off somewhere. They were, after all, not her people.

“Now, do you have any more inane questions?”

“... Just one. Why this thing? What’s so special about it?”

“It’s consistently unpredictable, even before the big-bada-boom. I actually went and reviewed the dungeon’s logs and found them to be quite entertaining. Here, let me give you some examples.”

The flagpole pulled out a small booklet and started listing through it.

“This thing survived its first two weeks on this world through a mixture of luck and ability. It took all chances that the flows of chaos presented it with and latched onto them with all its might without any hesitation. I respect that sort of thing, you know. A chance exists to be taken, after all.”

The three-eyed fork turned the page on the pamphlet it was holding in its bottles.

“It then absorbed the Warlock Job from a corpse. You know what the chances of it succeeding at that were? 4,000 to 1! And it managed to pull it off on only the third try! Well, its current chance of succeeding at that same outcome is closer to about 400 to 1, but that’s besides the point.”

He turned the pigeon upside down.

“And that magnificent stroke of luck was right after it broke out of the dungeon through what I can only describe as dumb luck. I can’t say I’m not impressed. Then it sort of did its own thing outside the dungeon for a bit, fought some people, yadda yadda yadda. Oh, it also gibbed a dwarf just as it teleported away with a Portal Key! Her friends’ reactions when they saw a pair of disembodied legs appear out of nowhere was really something else, let me tell ya!”

Lawrence rolled up the parchment and put it away inside his igloo.

“So that’s roughly the time when I started keeping an eye on it. And here’s the really amazing part. I realized that I’d actually been sort of introduced to it before that Calamity stuff even happened! This thing right here somehow managed to forward me its Status when making a demonic contract! Do you know how many times that has happened?!”

“I don’t-”

“Never! It has never, ever happened! I have absolutely no idea how the fuck it actually did that, either!”

“Did I do that?” asked Boxxy with a stupid look on its face.

“Yeah,” said Nick. “Oh right, you wouldn’t know, but I’m actually Katorolomaongott’s boss.”

“Who?”

“Uhm… I believe he introduces himself as Carl to mortals.”

“You know Carl?!”

“Well, I don’t really ‘know’ the guy, he just works for me. All demons do, technically speaking. Even the Demon King.”

“Punchy too?”

“Yep, that guy as well. You know, I was the one who created them in the first place. It started as a little experiment that went really out of control. They’re selfish, uncooperative and don’t give a flying fuck about mortals. Those kids, I’m so proud of them! Ah, I don’t often get to brag so I got a little sidetracked.”

Frank reigned in his enthusiasm and proceeded with the meat of the matter.

“Point is, I wasn’t actually planning on making an appearance at all. Sort of ruins the fun if I do that. But that’s when two particular demons started raising a huge fuss over ‘unlawful contract termination.’ I mean, the fact your random acts of violence somehow got a fiend and a succubus to agree on something is just mind boggling! So, all things considered, I decided I would help you out. And that’s why I brought you here.”

“Then you’re going to make me a Warlock again?!”

Boxxy’s face looked like it was about to explode from excitement.

“No.”

And then sank into the depths of despair.

“I’m going to give you a chance. That’s the best I can do, and I’m only doing it because I like you. Also it’s partly because that bitch Teresa cheated, and I don’t like that. Therefore, I’m going to even the odds a little, as it were. So, without further ado-”

*Snap*

Defeat the lich

Difficulty: ????????????????????????

Time Limit: Until the God of Uncertainty gets bored

Reward: Your Warlock and Artificer Jobs will be fully restored

You will become the chosen Hero of the God of Chaos

Progress: 0/1

Description: There’s an undead lich hiding in these mountains. It has been raising its own personal army of the undead in secret. Find it, defeat it, and claim victory for chaos.

“No rush,” said Chris reassuringly. “It’s a big undertaking so do consider it carefully.”

Boxxy understandably had a few questions about this proposition. The reward was pretty much exactly what it wanted right now, but that difficulty rating of six turtles was more than a little odd.

“What’s a lich?”

“Oh right, you wouldn’t know. Umm. Basically a super-powerful undead being that commands hordes of the dead. They also love throwing magical attacks at people’s faces.”

“Like Warlocks with skeletons?”

“Well… you’re not exactly right, but not exactly wrong, either.”