40_Cupid

The party was once again reunited outside Slippy’s souls space, but most importantly, fully clothed.

During their search in the bizarre tunnels, the group rummaged through the various wooden crates. They didn’t have much hope of finding anything, but the crates surprised them.

Besides finding components to fix one of Staple’s ears, they also found something else: A box filled with clothing tokens.

According to their magical expert, each token held a randomly selected garment, usually nothing remarkable in quality or rarity.

They were essentially a novelty money sink. Vending machines topped with a large glass globule were typically stocked with them, and the appeal lay in never knowing what might fall into your hands. Despite the slim to nonexistent rewards, people kept buying them for the thrill of the unknown and the simple urge to try their luck.

Herman dubiously eyed the box with tokens. Considering his attire consisted of thick grandpa glasses and a single sunflower leaf, he thought he couldn’t afford to be too picky. He just hoped he would get something decent after going through the entire crate. He could just imagine the countless trash drops consisting of pink howdy kitty tutu’s and whatnot…

In the end he simply closed his eyes, plunged his hand into the crate and pulled out a single token. He crushed the token in his hand and was instantly greeted by his old enemy, the popups…

CONGRATULATIONS!

"Gah!" Herman cried out at the sudden and loud System screen.

You have gained a LEGENDARY ITEM!!!

Dark gray shirt.

This elegant and stylish piece of attire is most commonly worn by the worker class of tinkerers and scientists. It provides…. "Skip…" with the best quality natural picked cotto "Skip!"

+ 45 to intelligence

+ 45 to perception

- 25 to charisma

+ … "I said SKIP!" Herman repeated, trying to get rid of the annoying chanting of the System.

"I got it boss." Slippy said from his perch inside the new shirts front pocket. He materialized his stick-man avatar inside Herman’s digital overlay and kicked the attention starved popup away.

"Oh thank god for you Slippy. I just can’t understand why I don’t have the option to silence or disable those… Everyone else seems to have it, hell even Polya has these muted and she has a similar package." Herman said.

"Not sure what to tell you, maybe whoever designed the Super Duper Legendary package really wanted you to know what you were getting for your moneys worth." The slip said as he placed a hand to his forehead, shielding his pixel dot eyes as he watched the kicked popup vanish in the distant horizon.

"But I haven’t paid anything for it. I don’t want it! My son just gave this to me. Presumably so I have everything needed and I wouldn't worry, but this is insane. Just look at this shirt. It is absolutely perfect, it is exactly the same as my old one, but with LEGENDARY stats. And it feels so soft and warm. And I picked it from the first try!"

"I don’t see anything wrong with that. Don’t you like it? Slippy said, a bit confused as to what was happening in the weird human’s mind."

"Yes, I love it!" Herman said, as we rubbed his hand over the smooth cloth. "It even has self cleaning and mending enchantments… But that is not the point!"

"I did my research about Generica Online when I was alive. This thing would have taken me years to craft, let alone buy. I would have had to raise my fighting skill, then gain a tailoring profession, then gardening for the cotton, then textile creation for the materials, maybe carpentry for the tools to make it, and so on and so on."

"I would have been forced to explore the world, adventure, research and plan. This is why I came here, I wanted to do all of those things. But now I got the finished product on a silver platter. All of the things I wanted to experience, the sense of achievement is now gone." The man passionately explained, trying to convey his feelings to his digital companion.

"Maybe you can still do these things? Nothing is stopping you after all." The slip said with his characteristical chipper voice.

"Y-yes, I guess I could try that.” Herman said, his mood improving. "I could just throw this legendary trash away and get a normal shirt instead, then I could build up from there." The man said, gaining momentum.

"Herman would you hurry up and put some pants already, nobody wants to see your dongle for any longer than necessary." The chopped-off head of Staple spoke from atop Heartsun’s back, safely strapped among his leaves.

"Aah!" Herman cried out with very unmanly yelp as he hastily moved the sunflower leaf back at its place, covering his manlyhood.

…

And so the old man proceeded to crush each and every token from the crate. And to his great displeasure they all contained Legendary or Epic rarity clothes, each one perfectly suited to his physique and desires. All enchanted with positive skills, passive effects and stats boosts.

With the notable exception of the charisma stat, which continued to offer only negative numbers instead.

In the end, the stubborn human seriously considered scrapping all the clothes and going naked just to spite the damn System, but after one of Staple’s comments about chopping off any dangling parts once she got her body back, Herman reconsidered his nudist plans and reluctantly put on the SUPER DUPER LEGENDARY clothes.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You are wearing a complete set of Super Duper Legendary items. You get the following….

"Slippy…." Herman murmured with defeated voice.

"On it." The slip said, as he sliced the popup to confetti with his laser sword. Then blasted the remains with a force push, spilling the tiny digital pieces away.

Not a second too late, a tiny golden crown appeared on top of Hermans bald head, as well as on Slippy’s physical body. It glowed with warm golden light and illuminated the gloomy tunnel they were all in.

Herman looked down at Slippy, then feeling the crown atop his own bald head. He tried to take it off, but the thing was stuck good as if it was welded down to his scull.

"Sigh…" Herman gave out a defeated sigh and just accepted his fate, not having the mental energy to deal with whatever this was. Later though he would definitely do something about it.

___

"Heartsun, please move us away from these fan girls before my processor overloads." The head of Staple said to the miniature plant monster, unable to continue listening to Polya and Slippy freaking out about Mecron and fangirling to him as if he was some sort of rock star.

The slip had hopped off Herman’s pocket and was currently residing atop the chickenmancer’s staff. The two engaged in a heated discussion of what was the best design of Mecron’s power armor during his active years at the superhero business.

The two beings chirped away akin to a pair of caffeinated squirrels arguing over an acorn.

…

"Heh, I see you have had enough of those two." Herman said with a chuckle as he saw Heartsun and Staple approach him.

The mini plant choosing to remain silent in favor of stuffing his bulbous mouth with ration cubes. Two crates were strapped to his back as he methodically plucked cubes from them, shoving each one into his mouth and loudly chewing. The process boosted his regeneration and growth. With each bite, his regeneration kicked in, and the plant rapidly reclaimed the mass he had previously lost.

"Urgh, I mean, I know your son is cool and all, but still, who cares if he liked pistachios or not. Whatever those things are, they costed too much to order for the inn, so I never actually got to see them." Staple said, ignoring the nasty eating sounds and other noises coming from her plant companion.

"Haha, yeah, it is a bit strange though. So far I have seen only hate and contempt towards my son’s… "business" It does make me feel good that not everybody out there hates him. Sometimes it feels like he is fighting the whole Solar System by his own."

"Those two are definitely weird as hell. But you are wrong to think that they are the only ones to care about him. Me and Topo have many friends who have been freed by their human masters and have chosen to join Mecron on his crusade. Your son is definitely not alone in his believes and does not lack comrades to aid him."

"Yeah, I guess you are right. We don’t really talk that much about his work. And the Escaldian media does tend to automatically blame him for anything that goes wrong. Still, he does seem tired, he is hiding it well, but I can tell. He isn’t a spring chicken anymore and has been fighting for so long, and yet nothing has changed who knows how much."

"The Escaldian government grows ever stronger. A large percentage of the mechanoid and AI’s are still enslaved under the thumb of their human masters. And most of the Earth is still a radioactive wasteland devoid of biological life."

"But let's put that aside for a moment. I think he needs to take a break for a while, I don’t think he has taken a day off for more than 30 years. It is always work work and more work. Yes he does spend time with my granddaughter, but…" Herman paused, uncertain of how to explain.

"But what?" Staple said after the pause stretched for a while, curious as to what was the old man talking about. He clearly had something specific on his mind.

"I mean, I am his father and I worry about these things." The old man said, fidgeting with his hands and looking somewhat uncomfortable.

"Huh, what do you mean?" Staple said, unsure what to think of the human’s unusual behavior.

"Well… you know… I hoped that he would find someone with whom he would share his life, I mean, romantically…"

"Oh… OH!" Staple said, finally realizing what the man was talking about.

"I mean, it isn’t really my business to pry with his life, but there have been so many years that I hoped something would happen. Hell, he is almost as old as I am and I haven’t seen him be with anyone ever. Neither has he shown much interest to begin with. Though in his defense we were much more concerned with survival back then than other things."

"And much later when he started his super hero/villain career, I harbored hopes that him and that other hero, what was her name… the one who controlled metal with her mind. Eh whatever… But at the end nothing came out of it. I think she is now the leader of a small mining camp on Pluto."

"Heh, sorry about all that. I am rambling again, I didn’t want to put my worries on your metaphorical shoulders."

"Hmmm…" Staple thought, her mechanical eyes flickering with an evil glint. "You know Herman, I think me and you happen to share the same type of problem." The bot said as she looked at the direction of her adopted niece, the woman happily chatting away of how cool Mecron was.

"Oh? OH!" Herman exclaimed with confusion and then realization as he followed the bot’s gaze toward Polya.

"Maybe those two are just the right kind of weird for each other." Herman said in a conspiratorial whisper to his mechanoid comrade.

And with that, a secret pact between man and machine was formed. One that would not rest until their mutual goal was achieved and the power of love prevailed.