Chance Cube

Dives was doing the same thing, saying, "We must hurry, I don't know who but they've already called in soldiers."

"Oh, sorry. That must've been the Elves or the stragglers, I told them to call the soldiers if they ever needed help."

"How did you inform soldiers of this location?"

"Someone named Buskat Vonnear gave me a card to break in case I needed help. I told him about this whole plan and he supported it. He even provided a few of the homeless to help."

"You're an idiot, trusting Buskat. Do you not see the constant smirk and evil glint in his eyes?"

"I don't know, he was one of the Vonnears, they're rich so I trusted him."

They heard muffled voices behind them, then running steps. People covered in shiny armor with the insignia of a lion on their chest burst through, Arnold at the front. They all wore and wielded the same things and Arnold bellowed, "on the orders of the soldiers, don't move!"

"Arnold, you're awake," Zeeth said.

"Arnold, how nice to see you."

"Uncle?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, Zeeth and I are here to help expose the Black Market."

"You are?" Arnold hesitated.

"Yes, now-"

"Don't move!" Nadaho shouted at the soldiers, who began inching forward. But just as he was shouting, one of the soldiers took a step forward and touched a circle on the ground. Light shone from the characters inscribed into the ground and mana ran through it, spreading from one circle to another like water. Each activated circle started a bomb underneath the floor and caused a tiny mana explosion of their own. He shouted, "We have thirty seconds before everything goes! Run!"

Dives turned back to the pile of artifacts and stolen goods, Arnold rushed forward, away from the starting circle, Nadaho was in between trying to destroy the circles and taking artifacts while even more people came rushing into the room, attracted by the light and the shouting. Soon, most of the room was filled with soldiers and black market members all trying to fight their way in to see what was going on and then people trying to escape once they realized there were hundreds of magic bombs planted on the floors.

Many people watched the four in the center of the room, Zeeth, Dives, Nadaho, and Arnold all while crowding the outer edges. A bomb set off in front of Arnold, the same bomb the first soldier stepped on, and a chain reaction began to spread. Bombs erupted from the ceiling directly above the first bomb, caused by the first explosion, blowing the top off and a large chunk of rock hit Arnold.

Zeeth grabbed Arnold and held him in a princess carry all while Dives and Nadaho stacked onto his body artifacts and items. Dives grabbed a final Human Bone Baton, shoved it between Arnold's armpit, grabbed Nadaho, who was also full of items, and ran up. He yelled to Zeeth, "I'm sure you can get up, come on!"

Still carrying an armful of Arnold and items, he ran up the walls of the tunnels while the bombs were set off and soldiers and Black Market members watched while they tried to run away from the growing explosions.

"Those people are stealing our artifacts!" a masked man yelled.

But the same Black market man he met before replied, "No, he's saving them! I saw him take out a soldier before!"

"That man is stealing Arnold!"

"No, you idiot! He's saving him from the bomb!" the soldier's superior hit him on the head.

"Oh, right…"

The bombs caved in the entire tunnel and caused a massive chain reaction, all while Zeeth had to run up the walls while carrying all that weight. For the first time in a long time, he was straining himself doing all that. He could easily run up walls even while carrying his slimes, but he had to carefully pace himself and had plenty of time to do so, but when he was being put to the test of speed with bombs threatening his and Arnold's life, he was having a much harder time. He couldn't slow down or rest and had to keep running faster than the speeding ruins of the bombs, wearing him out and not allowing him to watch where he was running. He could finally see a proper footing above him where Dives and Nadaho were waiting for him but a piece of rubble hit his back and he felt his feet slipping from the wall. He threw Arnold and the items above him, and it felt like things were going in slow motion.

He could see the last of Arnold leaving his hand as he gave one last push. He saw through his peripheral vision the soldiers and the Black Market members watching him. A few shields were set up to block the explosions while any expressions he could see were of pure shock and anticipation to see how everything would go. Soon, his foot slipped and he could feel himself falling as flames and heat hit him. The robe he was wearing blocked the damages while depleting its mana. A massive explosion set off near him, almost blasting him to bits or blowing his head off. But God's shield from the necklace activated and saved him from the bomb blasting him away. Dives grabbed Arnold and as many artifacts as he could but a single dice escaped from his grasp.

Nadaho reached in to grab it but the dice simply hit his hands and bounced even further down. The shield from God vanished along with the heat from the nearby bomb and rocks hit his back again. The dice came flying past his face as he watched it in slow motion and he just barely grabbed it but set himself even more off balance. His other foot finally found a proper footing but heat from the bombs were already too close. He forgot about the dice in his hands because of the bombs and it rolled out, disappearing into the dust.

The shield from the robes kept trying to protect him but it was quickly running out. All his previous fights and damage taken by the robe were running out while burns afflicted his bare skin that wasn't covered by the robe. He took a few more steps up the wall, relief washing over him over the fact that he was escaping.

A massive chunk of rock blew off from the wall he was running up in front of him just before he jumped onto the floor.

"Whew, thank god I escaped. Literally." Zeeth said. Bombs were still shaking the floor but it didn't seem like it was about to break anytime soon. Dives and Nadaho were staring at him, their eyes filled with terror. "Guys, I'm fine, why do you look so scared?"

"Your foot." Nadaho muttered.

He looked down at his foot and saw blood pouring out in place of his foot. His entire right foot was missing, pieces of white and metallic pieces hanging out from a bloody hole. "Oh, God! What the hell? God's Number!"

White spiraled from his eyes and enveloped him. He was brought to the first place he met god. His blood stopped pouring out, his parts stopped moving and for the moment, his wound stopped worsening but he could still feel pain from the stump. "God, how do I fix this?"

"If you want immediate help, you just need to wait a few seconds. A better long term fix would be the Spirits of FeGunda."

"What is that?"

"Spirits of FeGunda live in a secret area where all spirits exist and they can easily heal any injuries, even if they are million of years old."

"I'm going back, this hurts." Zeeth groaned, remembering what help he'll get in a few seconds. The robe he quite possibly destroyed was made from Afir's personal magic power, if too much power was taken away at once, he might appear and see what happened.

He went back to the real world where the blood kept pouring out. But almost as quickly as it had appeared, his wound began to close. Tiny metal clips rose like insect legs to pinch the blood together and stitch him back up. Seeing this brought back a memory, a memory of when he was much older, possibly 18. He was still an Android in progress as his kidnappers kept testing what kind of machinery they could put in him.

"His body is probably worth over a billion dollars now, what else do you want to add to him?" Vin asked, holding a clipboard.

Ben replied, "Some kind of healing factor. He's worth a billion dollars, we can't afford to lose him now. We would be shut down in a day if we lost that kind of machinery."

"Yeah, good idea. But how?"

"Well, his skin and blood is just to cover up his robot and make him seem human, we can just use the nanotech in his body to cover that up like platelets. Any damaged machinery would need to be worked on by us, no one else has any of our blueprints. Maybe we should give just a few others the blueprints-"

"No! We can't, we've been through this, Ben! This is our ticket to fame, once we complete him, we will be the only and best group to create a fully functional and top of the line android, anyone else who gets this will steal our spotlight!"

"I know, but what if we die? Would you want our greatest creation to die with us?"

"Dude, we need to be the only group to have this, that's a risk we have to take. We can't live forever as a failure. We'll be shut down without this and you know it."

"But this right here is bigger than either you or me, we made it but the world should know about it."

"This-" Vin gestured to Zeeth, "is *our* creation. It is not bigger than us, we created it. We won't get any credit if we share our blueprints, some other group will make a better version. Do you want to forever live as the group to fail in creating a sentient robot in the 30th century? We are still the biggest laughing stock, but in a few years we will come out as the greatest underdogs in history, it will be glorious! And this right here, this wonderful masterpiece of government creation, is our ticket. It's a wonder they created such a sturdy body."

Zeeth shot back to reality, the blood had basically all been clogged and dried up. But according to Vin and Ben, there was no way to actually fix his leg, at least not without them apparently. But he lived in a world of magic and fantasies, anything could be possible.

"Hey, why is your leg metallic?" Nadaho queried.

"Long story."

"We better go now." Dives glanced around. "The others might be coming soon."

"What did I just drop by the way?"

"It was a Chance Cube. More popularly called a Risk Brick because it's so annoying to use. Depending on which side you roll onto, the outcome of the next step will be either luckier or unluckier."

"You can quantify luck into a dice?"

"Why not? If you can observe or measure luck, why can't you make something to enhance it? Getting anything even will grant you luck, anything odd is bad luck. Lower numbers have less luck and it is one of the most complex circles ever created, the cube costs a ton. Did you put mana into it?"

"Yeah, I think so. I was running up using mana and probably got some into the cube as well."

"This might be bad."

"Wait, why are we all just ignoring the fact that his leg is metal? Guys, this isn't normal."

Deep down, where bombs were still going off but at a much slower rate than before, a single black and white dice hit the floor. It bounced a little, the mana inside shaking through the complex circles, and clattered around, bouncing unpredictably. It finally slowed down to a small wobble and landed on a single number. One. The unluckiest possible number to ever roll. Luck is seriously a fickle mistress.

Two white cracks appeared in the air right next to the dice. They expanded into the air, cracking and breaking as aura from hell leaked from it and two creatures came wrestling their way out of the cracks. One gap finally broke open and a single humanoid creature without hands came walking through. It looked like a shaved werewolf with black and white checkered skin. But the worst part of it all was it was covered in sharp metallic blades, unrefined but strong. Another much smaller thing came pulling itself out the second gap. It looked like a purple and green striped toad with warts and a fat mouth.

The toad eyed the dice, launched its fat red tongue out and swallowed the dice whole. The toad spat the dice back out again and it hit the wall with a loud pang. The dice flew back down and landed next to the two of them again. It clattered and landed on one. An unactivated bomb directly beneath the toad that had miraculously survived the massive chain reaction due to a mistake in drawing the circles suddenly activated. The bomb blew up before any of them had any chance to react and the toad was blasted into the sky, flying through the hole Zeeth went through and landed on his lap, dead.

"A second thing." Dives continued, "that specific dice..."

The second demon, the white and black sword-covered one, eyed the dice suspiciously. It stabbed it with a curved blade that took its place but the blade couldn't puncture it. The dice instead cackled with electricity and melted the blade.

"...Has been cursed by a god."

The electricity shot up the demon, electrocuting it and tearing its demonic body apart. The metal that the demon's blades were made of was an especially bad pair up for electricity, charging up and charring its skin, killing the demon almost instantly. Dives jumped in after the dice after most of the bombs had settled down but he was still protected from view by the rising dust clouds. He saw the dice but stopped and stared at the dead demon, wide-eyed. He picked up the dice and poked the demon, taking that up as well when he decided it was safe.

Zeeth was holding the strange toad and analyzing it. [Grimbach Toad (Dead). A mistake of an experiment, this toad used to be a human. Due to both the experiment and living in Hell, the toad is remarkably tough and stretchy. Its skin imbued with the air from hell also resists most magic to a small extent.]

Dives came back up, holding the black and white demon and dropped it on the ground.

[Nameless Low-Grade Demon (Dead). A demon lodged all over with dull blades imbued with energy from hell, a serial killer during its lifetime, it was killed after being pushed into the Graveyard of Dead Blades.]