BXBX NOVEL Chapter 938 - 938 Chapter 938 Going Over the ‘Loot’
Lily had managed to use her trick to hide the two smaller bags but Kat was still stuck one with one oversized bag containing a single box that weighed more than Sylvie would be able to carry. A minor problem, but an acceptable one. It wasn’t enough to even stumble Kat though, despite Sue once again dropping them from the sky so she had an excuse to wobble. Sue quickly led the group off the path to one of the better, but secluded, spots to sit down.
They were led to a weird set of fairy floss like bushes that Sue flopped down on top of. The bush deformed around Sue and acted like a bean bag rather then a plant. Sue also dropped her own bag off to the side and gestured to one of the other plants nearby. Kat took up her own seat, and Lily transformed right on Kat’s lap. It took a bit more manoeuvring to drop the bags off to the side but were situated before too long.
“I still can’t believe you have so much money!” said Sue with no small amount of awe.
Kat couldn’t help but blush. Apparently, Xiang’s Contract was rather lucrative. She skipped all the way up to 10 Pyre. Without context that didn’t seem like much at all… but it was enough for a small apartment in some of the less desirable areas of the hub, or enough gold to crash the world economy. It wasn’t big money in demon terms… but for a demon that hadn’t even been doing Contracts for a year it was a positively decadent amount.
The most expensive game, ‘Clash of Gods in a Mortal World’ cost about 50 Fireplace, which was still outrageously expensive. Apparently it was one of, if not the most expensive non-enchanted game you could buy that saw regular production runs. It was the equivalent of going into a mortal board game shop and walking out with a BMW instead. Of course to the now, apparently rich Kat, it wasn’t a problem at all, but she didn’t know what to do with that kind of money.
Clash of Gods in a Mortal World or just ‘God Clash’ was considered the pinnacle of strategy games. Not just enchanted, but unenchanted as well. You and your opponents were two competing ‘gods’ stuck together with just one world. Both started with a kingdom dedicated to them, and your job was to conquer the world. The part that was rather tricky came in the fact that it had multiple levels of play.
There was of course, the highest level, using your godly abilities to shape terrain, cause plagues, and destroy cities… but your opponent could reliably counter those sorts of things with their own powers. The layer below that was kingdom management. You had to manage the troops logistics, look out for spies, convert diplomats, and try to annex or conquer the smaller kingdoms that also populated the map.
The final layer was your ‘Hero’ unit. Each god could empower one person as their chosen ‘champion’ at a time, and you could directly… for the most part… control that hero unit to make major impacts on the world. Heros were more limited then godly pieces in terms of powers, but in exchange the enemy god couldn’t attack them directly either. The only other strange thing is that ‘gods’ were encouraged not to clash with their hero units. The ‘hero’ that attacked first suffered all manner of penalties, like forcing the next hero unit to enter the field a generation late, at half power or other problematic issues.
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It was a lot like three games in one, but each layer was connected. The whole thing had hundreds of cards, thousands of little pieces and frankly the rules went way over Kat’s head. Lily was able to keep them all together… in theory. In practice she wanted NOTHING to do with the game either. It was closer to an exercise in balancing spreadsheets and risk management instead of a board game in her mind. Absolutely perfect for Sylvie and Callisto to go ham with.
Sure it might take up a whole dining room table sized play space, but Kat was sure they’d find some way to manage it if they started enjoying things. If God Clash turned out to be the Sylvie’s favourite gift well… there were a number of expansions for the game they hadn’t even bothered to look at. Those would be perfect for next year. Oh, that was one other thing. ‘Turns’ took place over in game months and years. Actually playing the damned thing took ‘Upwards of 100 subjective hours’ so it wasn’t getting finished any time soon.
“I didn’t realise I had that kind of money either… I mean… I’d say I was overpaid a bit… but I did fight someone at Rank 4 and I was away for months so…” Kat said with a shrug.
Sue shook her head, “Kat, some people take Contracts for years and still get paid less. Overpaid is underselling it,”
Kat shrugged, “Well it does make me glad I didn’t bother quibbling about how much money I ended up with the first time,” Sue just shook her head in annoyance.
The second game they bought wasn’t as complicated… though that was only from one perspective. It was called ‘Down with the Demon King’ or ‘DDK’. This game was split into two asymmetrical teams, the Demon King of course, and the Heroes. The heroes played in a team of four to six players and it was there job to try and take out the Demon King. Each of the players had to pick a class, and were encouraged to work together.
They advanced down the board based on the roll of a dice, and could either move together or split up, though of course, splitting the party carried heavy penalties. Sometimes it was worth it… usually it wasn’t. The hero team was very simple to play. Just fight monsters with dice and some basic cards, perform ‘quests’ for gear and eventually make it to the Demon King. The cards were all simple, the weapons were all basic upgrades. It was more about making sure the classes worked together.
The Demon King on the other hand had to manage a bunch of resource tiles, troop logistics, and a sort of background war with a non-player kingdom that was trying to help the heroes out. The Demon King had to fight tooth and nail through a bunch of complicated nonsense to get even small bonuses against the heroes… and was likely to still lose anyway even if they managed to play out of their mind. That was how the game was designed.
Kat felt like Callisto would happily take the Demon King role most of the time, and Sylvie might eventually get there if she made some good friends that didn’t mind playing against her in that role.
Apparently the game was intended for parents of high rank to play against children. They really amped up the difficulty of the Demon King’s gameplay to make it nearly impossible for a child to play at all. The Demon King was more of a dungeon master and watcher for the group rather then a true obstacle unless they wanted to really dig into the games system and eek out minor bonuses. The real test of skill was just how prosperous the land was after the Demon King was defeated.
There was ‘Prosperous’ where the Demon King was basically a good thing. All the resources gathered during the quest going to making the kingdom even better. Below that was ‘Boom Time’ where the Demon King encouraged the kingdom to come back stronger, with ‘Beaten but not Broken’ being a… more middling stage. Where the Demon King failed, and everyone celebrated but it was a hard fought thing. The final two stages were ‘Devastation’ and ‘Demon King Victory’ but according to Ludas, most people considered ‘Devastation’ a loss as well. The kingdom would be all but destroyed, many people lost to the war. Well, that was the background lore for it anyway.
The final gift wasn’t all that special. It was just a rather nice chess set carved out of what looked like, and were in fact, gemstones. Kat grabbed it because it was super cheap by her new standards. It was only 10 Candle. Basically, a steal. It wasn’t enchanted, but the gemstones were real. Kat… might just not tell anyone that last part.
Oh… and Sue got her own game… but… really… it’s… well ‘highly inappropriate for children’ is putting the depravity levels lightly.