《Shovels In Spades》B1: Chapter 24: Box and Safe
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Upon opening the letter, a small golden key rolled out, and Daz swiftly caught it. He ignored it for now and decided to read the letter. 'I wonder what on Earth this suitcase is, and who it belonged to?' he thought.
'Dear reader,
I do not know your name, but I am aware of who you are. You may have heard of me depending on the level of civilisation your planet had before the Experiment began. I am Altros. A great explorer of the universe!
Good good. I'm glad you know who I am, what's that? You're an avid fan?! Even better!'
It was at that point that Daz threw the letter to the floor and quickly began unlocking the case. However, just before Daz could put the key into the keyhole, the letter had flown up from the ground and proceeded to hover directly in front of his face, no less than two centimeters away from Daz's eyeballs.
'As I was saying, I'm a pretty important person. Now, you're wondering why I, the great and mighty Altros, have written this letter and given you this case, right? Well, the simple answer is, you're pretty interesting, so you got a slightly better goodie than most of the others.
By the way, I can see all of the hosts that managed to get ahold of my previous items, so don't think you're special. Quite a few other people on your planet have received a nice little package from me.
I tend to hand out random goodies, you know, a castle here, a death beam there, the standard stuff. For you, Mr.Talkstohissummonlikeitcantalkback, mmm, need a new nickname for you, anyway, for you, you get the Box of Wonders!
"Wonder" what it is? Heh, that was funny. Well, it's obviously a Box of Wonders! I know I know, you're new to the whole system. This little bugger is pretty helpful to someone like you, well, anyone really. What it does is, once every ten-day cycle, it will give you one item or collection of items that you really need or that might be kinda helpful to you. For example, a good result would be the jewels in there now which you and your summon need, but a bad result would be, say, one jewel instead of the nearly three-hundred you got. Handy, right? It's a bit random, but boy is it fun!
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Ouch, mentioning the ten-day cycles cost me more points than I thought it would, mmm, another round of inflation? The system really needs to stop eating so much; I keep telling it, "Eat too many points, and one day, you'll explode." A real shame it doesn't care what I tell it, it's us, the little men, that suffer due to its greed.
I'm rambling, good luck yadda yadda yadda don't try to sell the box, or you'll violently combust yadda yadda yadda. I expect great things from you. Treat my old gear and the box well.
With love, the almighty Altros.'
And with that, the letter disintegrated in front of Daz's eyes. "... What the fuck?" Daz was left nearly speechless. He proceeded to stare very carefully at the suitcase that he had laid out on the floor. After a thorough examination, he had found a small plaque on the side of the container that was made out of what looked like bronze, and it read 'The Box of Wonders #2256148' in full cursive. "Is that number a serial number? How many of these exist?"
After thinking about the letter and the serial number a bit more, Daz decided to finally open the suitcase and see exactly what was in there. Even if the letter had said it actually was the suspected jewels, Daz's instincts to open the proverbial Pandora's box was indeed, very strong.
He slowly inserted the key and twisted it gently. A clicking noise sounded out in the shipping container, and Daz instantly knew the box was now unlocked. He once again pulled down the two clips and carefully opened the top half of the suitcase.
An audible gulp resounded out within the charity container as Daz oggled the shiny stones that were almost flowing out of the box. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires. Countless jewels, well, two-hundred and ninety-six, but Daz felt like there was far too many to count.
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"I need to store these carefully... .the Box of Wonders won't close now. Does it not let you store things in it? Well fuck, where do I keep so many shinies safely?" Daz mumbled. Thankfully, it didn't take his ingenuity long to come up with a solution. He simply bought a new item from the shop. An item that would be exceedingly helpful in the future. A safe.
"Ten thousand points was a lot, but it needed to be a good one and be super tough, so I guess it was worth it?" Daz said while he looked at the large black safe that took up almost half of the charity container's space. It was huge. It was made out of a black steel of some sort, Daz didn't know which kind, since the material stated in the description was unfamiliar to him, but it's durability and security level was the main reason he bought it.
'System, can you please transfer all of the stored jewels in my base to my personal safe?' Daz asked in his thoughts while he stared at the small mountain of jewels that were spewing out of the Box of Wonders.
Confirmed. Transfering desired items.
After seeing that blue screen, Daz's precious jewel mountain suddenly disappeared, and almost as if on instinct, he identified the safe to make sure the jewels had successfully transferred.
Daz's Personal Safe [C-Rank (Higher Tier)] Description A secure safe made entirely out of Hyberiun Steel, manufactured by the Letman Company of the planet Jardun. It is exceptionally sturdy and will take more than a few explosions to crack, that's for sure. Stats Durability: 15,000/15,000 Security: 7,500/7,500 Attack: 150 Skills Contain Alarm Automatic Theft Prevention Contents Resources Jewels: 296
After seeing it was okay and his fortune was secure, Daz sighed in relief and returned to the Box of Wonders. 'Can I store you in my inventory? It's going to be a real pain if something as valuable as you isn't with me at all times.' After thinking that, Daz tried to store the now empty suitcase and thankfully, he succeeded.
Now with his quest to find the mysterious jewels over, Daz left the charity container and made for the cabin. It was time to get Lyle and return to the DIY store.
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