Much like before I had everyone spread out, but far enough away from the boss so as not to get his attention. I was sweating bullets, of everything we’d done so far this fight was probably the first real challenge we would face. I checked my mana, full up at thirty points, before activating my Precognition. I felt the world slow to a crawl around me as my brain compensated for the knowledge being handed to me.

I could see before hand as the Rat bastard dodged a swing from the Axe Magnus swung at it and retaliated, I called the next few seconds over party chat and then broke my stance to charge in. I’d seen what would happen when I did it before I went in, so until I did something to actively alter the flow of events the next few seconds were in my hands. I came in hard and loud, drawing the Bastards attention as much as possible and dropping under the wide swing I knew he would throw that put him off balance.

I went in with my sword, slashing hard at one of the joints in his leg, and then felt the smash of something against my head as my blade bit in. Due to lack of practice and my limitations my fighting style was far from perfect dodging the wide swing had changed the flow of battle, which meant that I hadn’t seen it coming when he slammed his stupid rat elbow into my soft human skull. I say soft in comparison, because apparently fucking rats have bones like cast iron.

I stumbled away from the howling beast, blood dripping into my eyes and my legs wobbling under me from the impact. My whole head seemed to reverberating with the force. Note for the future, being able to see a few seconds ahead doesn’t make you a kickass fighting master. I threw myself sideways just in time to avoid the follow up from his stupid rat fuck cleaver before it split me in half like a sharp axe through firewood. I heard some quick muttering and a shower of sparks went off in the things face, giving me enough time to roll away as it roared and flailed dangerously around with its giant ass blade.

I felt a wave of relief and warmth roll over me as light fell down from above my head, knitting together skin and unfucking my battered skull. I cast a grateful look over at Sarah, who was smiling with relief at my miraculous recovery due to her timely healing. I swear even my nerves felt less frayed. Turned back to the Rat Bastard, feeling more confident and ready to take on the world, which was probably the only thing that allowed me to dodge that giant ass blade before it split my skull like a ripe melon.

Right, I hadn’t used my precognition and had like one or two usable battle skills. Fuck. Luckily before the Rat could finish the job Magnus came up behind it and…fucking suplexed the thing into the dungeon floor. Wow. His strength really wasn’t a joke. I expected its stupid rat head to explode but after laying there stunned for a few seconds it rolled out of the way of the slashes we swung at it when we realized it wasn’t dead. That aside, it was still on the ground and we were able to surround it and stab it the rest of the way to death anyway.

Shawn was sitting off to the side, nursing a broken nose as he glared down at the slowly vanishing boss corpse. Apparently he’d been tagged while I was getting my bell rung, because I hadn’t seen anything touch him. He looked like a goose someone had hit with a pillow and I was finding it hard not to laugh so I focused on the other MVP of the fight. “Jesus Magnus where the hell did that come from? One second we’re on the back foot and the next you hit the bastard with a literal stone cold stunner.”

The huge Nordic blonde grinned wolfishly “Austin 3:16 says I just whooped your ass.” Shockingly, Sebastian of all people dissolved into giggles. We all looked over at the normally taciturn weapons master in shock and the Italian sobered instantly and stared aloofly off into the middle distance. Ali grinned at him “Oh no, you’re not getting off that easy, what the hell was that?”

The swordsman grimaced before muttering “I like wrestling, I used to watch it with my cousins.” We all grinned at him, hassling him a bit but ultimately coming to an unspoken agreement at least on the part of Ali and Erin and I that we liked Sebastian a lot better now that we knew he wasn’t just a frigid badass. Erin barged forward, getting herself in between the whole group physically blocking our view of each other as she bounced up and down so fast she appeared to be vibrating.

Her voice was almost as excited as her exultant expression as she crowed “Enough lollygagging, nerds, we have BOSS LOOT to distribute!” Despite letting loose a cackle that seemed to foretell the coming of a swarm of flying monkeys, my sister had a solid point. We had killed a few monsters so far, but this was the first boss we had put down and I was so excited to see what the loot was I could almost taste it. I could see the same triumphant gleam in my party members eyes too. Even sweet, even tempered Sarah seemed to be salivating over the kinds of goodies we might get from our first boss raid.

Erin nearly danced over to the Rat Bastards corpse, and reached down to touch the boss to begin looting, but before her hand had reached it Sebastian had grabbed her wrist to stop her. “Your luck is pretty good, but Ethans is the highest any of us have ever even heard of. Common sense says Ethan should do the looting to get us the best drops.” Erin leveled her patented half pout half glare at Sebastian, who just raised an eyebrow at my bratty sister. Erin just huffed and yanked her hand away storming over to where Aiden was to sulk.

I slowly made my way over to the remains, feeling the eyes of my party on me. I was a pretty confident guy mostly, but this was a lot of pressure to put on someone for a random drop, Luck stat or no. Shaking my head to clear it I crouched down to touch the corpse. As it had earlier, the system gave me the option to loot all, and since none of the gear was identified I accepted. Aside from a few weapons and a shield, we also got an orange grade stone that was already half full! I hadn’t known you could get partially full stones but it was a welcome surprise.

Stacking all the items which had appeared in a pile to one side I had Shawn once again mass identify them. The weapons were passed around to the appropriate party members and we stashed a few of them. Nothing stood out too much, mostly some poisoned daggers and an axe with an armor degrading enchantment on it. But the most interesting thing was the last item, hidden under all the others. Dice of Possibilities (Common rank, Growth item): An incredibly rare growth type item, these dice inflict an attack of one of six elements (fire,water,earth,air,light, or dark) against an opponent. Element decided by number of first die, damage decided number of second die. Damage value will be equivalent to the users Luck attribute multiplied by the roll of the second die. One use per battle. (0/100XP to next level, one percent of XP added toward leveling. No adjustment.)

I stared slack jawed in amazement at the new weapon. I had been wracking my brain to try to come up with a proper class or even a good weapon to use, and my Luck had delivered. This was the perfect weapon for me to use. Granted right now they were limited, but growth type meant they could become stronger, limitations could be fixed presumably. This was going to completely change the way I fought. I grinned to myself as I pocketed the new weapon. It looked I had gotten lucky.