Jen was trying to relax in the recliner, she could see Sam was awake on the couch staring at the ceiling, and said, “Whatcha thinking about?”

Sam took a deep breath and replied, “I can’t sleep. I need to sleep; I should sleep, but my mind is just overwhelmed with anxiety about what is going to happen tonight. My gut is just in knots. I’m worried about you, and……. Then my mind repeats the same thoughts over and over.”

Jen simply replied with a small crack in her voice, “Me too.”

No matter how much Jen and Sam wished they could view it as a new adventure or rushing into the pit of hell ready to fight the devil himself, they simply couldn’t. Neither of them wanted this.

Sam looked guiltily over at Jen and said, “Now, there are just a few last items that we need to discuss. I’ve been putting this off, and joking with you about the cows, but here is what I’ve got planned...”

Three giant dead cows lay in the yard. Sam had killed and gutted all three of them. Inside each cow was a plastic-wrapped tactical bag containing weapons, ammo, several knives, body armor, clothing, tactical boots, miscellaneous survival gear, tech gear and drones, and a crossbow and bolts. Once he finished packing all the gear inside of the cows, he then sewed them back up.

Jen had been horrified when Sam first told her what the cows were for, but when he explained, “Remember, when you were talking about the disabled Lotto with the severe limp. In his video there were no steel pins, rods, or other items left after his transfer, which must have been used in all the surgeries he would’ve had on his leg. I then noticed in the videos of many of the other Lottos being transferred, you never saw any gold teeth, crowns, metal fillings, or other foreign objects that are commonly actually inside of people’s bodies.”

Jen had become attached to the cows but grudgingly agreed it was worth trying, but she refused to participate or even watch him kill and butcher the cows she had bonded with.

After preparing the cows and gear, Sam cleaned up and called for Jen to come outside. Feeling guilty about the cows, he now felt really odd when he said, “One last thing. Take your shirt off.”

As they were waiting the last few moments before the transfer to the Seven Decks, Jen and Sam were both shirtless hugging each other so tightly her ribs were hurting from the pressure, their mouths were shut, and they couldn’t talk. They were talked out anyways, but their eyes communicated their love and commitment to one other.

Just a few seconds before transfer, Jen checked her stat screen and was stunned when she realized the odds of death upon transfer had dropped to 78%. With a little difficulty she mumbled, “Love you, old man.”

“Love you too, kid,” he mumbled back.

Then Jen felt something in the air, it felt like the mana that was inside her was turning to steam. She tightened her grip on Sam, and she could feel his grip tighten back.

Rainbows appeared out of the sky completely engulfing their bodies and the cows.

Everything seemed to disappear. All of her energy and power, along with the mana inside her, instantly ripped out of her. She couldn’t move; her whole body locked in place, but she could still feel Sam. The world came into focus, and she felt Sam release her naked body.

Sam’s muscles, veins, and organs all seemed to tighten in excruciating pain as the mana was torn out of him, but the one thing he kept his mind hyper-focused on was the Smith & Wesson Bodyguard 380 that was tightly compressed and sealed between his belly and Jen’s.

He released Jen and reached for the gun, and the feel of the handle was one of the greatest reliefs he ever experienced. Sam was in terrible pain and wanted to collapse to the ground, but he forced himself to check out his surroundings.

Fortunately for Jen and Sam, the three bandits spawn camping this particular transfer pad were shocked when the three elephant-sized cows appeared. The bandits hesitated just a couple of seconds, before continuing their charge towards Sam and Jen with their raised swords and axes.

Sam was an excellent shot and experienced with combat stress, but his first shot went wild and hit one of the bandits in the shoulder. He cursed inwardly, “I’ve only got 6 rounds in this little 380 magazine. Every shot must count! Fast is slow, Slow is Fast” he mumbled to himself as he methodically shot all three bandits in the face.

Sam knew that he got lucky, because the sound of the first shot appeared to cause all three bandits to flinch and slow in surprise. If they had kept charging him at full speed, one of them probably would have chopped him in half.

After the third bandit went down, Jen was still feeling like she had been run over by a truck, but she had already spat the multi-tool out of her mouth and was cutting open the cows to retrieve their gear bags. She worked as fast as possible while Sam kept watch.

Less than a minute later, Jen yelled, “Here you go,” as she threw Sam’s gear bag beside him and announced, “I’ve got you covered.” Sam and Jen were still completely naked, but he noticed Jen had removed her M-4 assault rifle and body armor from the gear bag and took watch. He snatched the bag and readied his own M-4 and body armor within a few seconds.

Sam inspected their surroundings while Jen recovered the gear bags. They appeared to have been transported to a forested mountain range in the middle of nowhere. Sam grabbed his gun bag and said, “Leave all the other bags. We’ve got to get somewhere safe and fast.”

They moved off into the forest as fast as they could, considering they were both still feeling sick and weak from the transfer. Sam led the way and eventually found a hidden area that overlooked their transfer site. They laid down in the prone position, keeping completely silent, listening, slowly recovering, and watching for anything.

Jen whispered to Sam, “Did you get a system message?”

He replied, “Yes, but I swept it out of my vision immediately. Ignore it and stay focused, we are still in a hot zone. We can pull it all up later.”

Jen did not like that response; her curiosity was killing her, but she wasn’t going to take the chance and be responsible for getting them killed.

After several hours of nothing Sam whispered to Jen, “Keep an overwatch. My mana has barely started to refill, but I feel like my strength and stamina are back. I’m going to get dressed and properly equip the rest of my gear.” When Sam was fully dressed and equipped, he lay back down in an overwatch position and said, “Your turn.”

Once Jen was equipped and back into position, Sam said, “I’m going to go back down there, get the rest of our gear, and see if those bandits have anything useful on them.”

She watched as Sam slowly, painstakingly, moved back towards the bandits. He entered the ambush site like a wild animal that suspected it was entering a trap. She noticed him check on one of the barbarian-looking bandits wearing medieval looking fur and leather clothing, when all of a sudden the bandit’s body just disappeared.

Jen cursed herself, “Quit watching Sam; look for the enemy!” She was just going to have to wait until he returned to find out what the hell was going on. Jen could see out of the corner of her eye, the other bodies disappearing and then all the cows disappearing.

Sam texted her, “I found some magic space rings on the bandits that I can put all our shit in. Keep watch, I’ll be done in just a few minutes.”

Jen chanted in her mind, “Keep focus, scan for the enemy, ignore all the cool magic disappearing shit going on.”

Sam texted Jen, “I tried to make the site look deserted before I left. I’m going to try to find a better overwatch position. I’ll be back in 20 minutes, but I will check in every 5 minutes. Please keep a watch on the ambush site.”

Jen acknowledged Sam’s message. She was normally the leader of their group, but she knew being a good leader required recognizing and following someone else when they were more experienced.

When Sam returned, he led her much further away in a more secluded location, but with his spotter scope from the gear bag, they could still keep eyes on the ambush site.

Once they were settled in, they remained silent and continued to only text each other.

Sam looked a little sheepish when he held up his hand with a ring on it and texted, “I almost swiped away a loot message about this space ring without reading it, because I was trying to stay alert. When I touched the first dead bandit, a system message asked if I would like to loot the body. When I accepted, the system notified me that I had recovered a ring of holding, a battle axe, weapons, clothing, rations, and 5 silver, and 20 copper.”

“So, what happened to all the stuff and the bodies?” replied Jen impatiently.

“The system then asked if I would like to place the items in the ring or deposited on the ground. When I selected to deposit the items in the ring, the ring fell in my hand. As I started to see if it would fit on any of my fingers, it automatically adjusted in size to fit perfectly. When I looted the other bandits, they each had rings as well, but those rings and all their gear went directly into the ring I was wearing. I then stored the rest of the gear bags from the cows into the rings before Looting the cows, which gave us like 300 lbs of beef and some leather hides I believe.”

“Did the dead bodies go into your ring too?”

“I don’t think so. If I focus on the ring, the system gives me a list of everything in it, and I don’t see the bodies on the list. The bodies just seemed to disappear after they were looted.”

“I wonder where the bodies go?”

“Beats me. They just vanished. Made clean up a lot easier though.”

“True. Have you tried to take anything out of the ring yet?”

“No. Let me try to give you one of the other rings. Oh!! Here it is. I just thought about getting it out to give to you, and it just appeared in my hand.”

Jen was grinning with excitement as Sam handed her the ring. She placed the ring on her finger and watched with amazement as the ring shrunk to fit. “This is so cool!” she said, as she moved the ring to different fingers to watch it change sizes. “There’s nothing in this ring though,” Jen said as she tried to view its contents.

Sam nodded, “Right, when I looted the next body, I’m pretty sure it pulled everything out of the ring and placed those items separately in the ring I was wearing. Let me give you some of the loot.”

“Wait.” Jen said, as she pulled the ring off of her finger. “Store my ring back into yours, and think of it, or label it, as ‘Jen’s ring’. Then try to mentally select items in your inventory and move them into my ring.”

As soon as Jen released the ring into Sam’s hand, it simply disappeared, “Wow, I didn’t even have to touch my ring to yours. I was just thinking about putting your ring in my inventory and it disappeared going directly into my ring. There are so many possibilities with this!” Sam said.

Jen asked, “Hang on a second, does it show if there is a limit to the amount of stuff you can put into it?”

Sam had a vacant look again as Jen watched him “stare” into the ring. He then replied, “I had to mentally think about the ring’s capacity before a bar appeared in the inventory showing it being 87% full.”

“O.K. Now see if you can move a large item from you inventory into my ring.” Jen said.

Sam could see the excitement in her eyes. He was also very excited and wanted to experiment with the rings more himself, but he felt like he was being selfish doing all the “fun” stuff while she just watched. He took the ring off his finger handing it to Jen, and said, “It's your turn to play around with it some. You give it a try.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. You know more about this stuff than I do.”

Sam kept watch, but noticed Jen as she put the ring on and off, pulled out the other ring, put on both rings at the same time, and then she said, “I labeled your ring as ‘Sam’s ring’, and I simply labeled the third ring as ‘spare ring’. If you look closely, you can see that all the rings are slightly different in make, and they all have different capacity limits. Your ring has about four times more space than the other two rings, and the space inside the rings don’t stack.”

“What do you mean by they don’t stack?” Sam asked.

“I’ll use an example to explain. If a small ring can hold 50 pounds of gear and it is full, and a large ring can hold 100 pounds of gear and it is 99% full, you can’t put the small ring inside the big ring, because the big ring only has enough capacity to hold one more pound. The small ring doesn’t come close to weighing a pound, but the gear inside the ring accounts for 50 pounds of storage space. You would just have to wear two rings instead of one, if your total gear exceeded 100 pounds.”

“How much total weight do you think the big ring can hold?” asked Sam

“Sorry, I was using pounds in the example to make it easier to explain, I actually think the capacity is determined by physical size/volume of the items, but can’t say for sure. It could be limited by both. I just don’t know.”

Sam grinned mischievously when he said, “If it’s OK with you, just give me back one of the small rings and you keep the big ring and everything else. I’ll keep watch while you continue experimenting with the rings, checking out the loot, and going through all your system messages. I’ll try to forward you the messages I received about the loot and my stats.”

“Sure” Jen replied as she handed Sam a ring and then moved further back into the brush to spend some time reviewing the system messages she’d pushed aside earlier during the bandit attack.

==

Welcome to the Seven Decks – Your 12x training buff has ended.

==

Full System interaction is now active.

==

Jennifer Cho: Mana channels 2

==

If you are willing to risk everything and beat the odds of dying, then upon reaching the seventh deck you will receive a wish from the gods.

Only those who are willing to have all their mana drained may teleport between decks.

Minimum of 20 mana required to teleport between decks 1 and 2. 10 additional mana for each accompanying beast. Minimum of 40 mana required to teleport between decks 2 and 3. 20 additional mana for each accompanying beast. Minimum of 80 mana required to teleport between decks 3 and 4. 40 additional man for each accompanying beast. Minimum of 160 mana required to teleport between decks 4 and 5. 80 additional mana for each accompanying beast. Minimum of 320 mana required to teleport between decks 5 and 6. 160 additional mana for each accompanying beast. Minimum of 640 mana required to teleport between decks 6 and 7. 320 additional mana for each accompanying beast.

The Greater the Risk, the Greater the Reward!

==

Gambling Quest: Make it to Casino City

==

Requirements: Reach Casino City… (Map will be provided if quest accepted. Quest can only be accepted while still in the Blackjack Forest)

In one day – odds of dying 75% Reward of 3 ability points and euphoria for every ability point gambled, maximum bet of 3. In two days – odds of dying 60% Reward of 2 ability points and euphoria for every ability point gambled, maximum bet of 2. In three days – odds of dying 50% Reward of 1 ability point and euphoria for every ability point gambled, maximum bet of 1.

==

Accept: Yes/No

==

As Jen read through all her messages and then the loot messages Sam sent her, she thought, “That’s cool, he was actually able to forward me his messages.” When she was finished, instead of just swiping them away and dismissing them, she organized them all in her “on board” computer and told Sam, “We both gained enough experience points from killing the bandits to reach level 4. Now it’s your turn to read through everything and tell me what you think.”

A few minutes later, Jen looked over at Sam as it sounded like he was hyperventilating or something. “What’s wrong, why are you shaking? What’s happening!” as she reached over to see if he had somehow been injured, or poisoned, or who knows what.

He turned towards Jen with tears in his eyes, and then focused for a second as he texted her, “I can get her back!”

Jen was a little confused, and she could see a determined look in his face that actually frightened her a little.

“Get who back? What are you talking about?” Jen messaged with confusion on her face.

Sam pulled out Kelly’s lock of hair that he always kept with him. “The system said if we ascend the Seven Decks, we get a wish from the gods!... I can wish for the gods to bring Kelly back, alive and healthy!”

Jen could see that Sam was still shaking, but she could now see the hope and pure determination filling him. She wondered how someone so cynical would believe that these “gods” could or would grant such a wish.

Before speaking, Jen paused and thought about the impossibility of them even being in this “world,” and why not, what did they have to lose? Why not go for it? Even if there is a .00001% chance of getting Kelly back, she would give it her all. Jen allowed hope, certainty, and passion to fill her, and blinked away her own tears as she texted “Sam, we are going to get Kelly back, and there is nothing that is going to stop us from reaching these gods on the Seventh Deck!”

After they both sat there for a few minutes just absorbing the reality that they were going to conquer these mysterious decks and get Kelly back, Jen said, “We can’t fail this mission; the stakes are too high. Let’s take stock of everything and consider where we should add the ability points from level increases. Keep in mind, we’ve lost the 12x progression growth buff.”

Jen and Sam continued to quietly scan the approach from their overwatch position as they considered their stats and options.