Fredric was taking a deep breath to calm himself.
"I am going to lose my common sense," he said to the clueless walking treasure dispenser sitting in front of him, who had the audacity to grin at him.
"Do you want to give it back?" asked Dud teasingly. Fredric glared at him as he clutched the silver bag closer to his chest.
"This is mine now," Fredric declared. He was stuck between [Portal] and [Stasis], which were weaker versions of [Portal Creation] and [Clock Blocker]. [Portal] functioned the same as the Portal Gun from Portal, and [Stasis] let the user 'freeze' a target in time, but they can be moved, and damaging the target undoes the 'freeze.' We have a bit of time before we have to pay attention to Dud, so let us go over the weaker versions of his abilities, yay?
1> [Wheel of Mahoraga](Divine)#-> [Wheel of Adaptation](legendary): An invisible wheel resting behind the user's head when spinning adapts all abilities and powers of the user to whatever danger they find themselves in. The adaptations fade over time but can be learned on their own. The wheel spins when the situation the user is in exceeds the user's capacity to endure and stops when they can endure it.
2> [Momentum](Uncommon) -> [Momentum: The longer you are moving, the faster you start going, with a maximum of 200%.
3> [Sprout](Common) -> [Sprout](Trash): You can tell where a seed is sprouting and when a seed will sprout.
4> [Hustle](Common) -> [Hustle](Trash): You will know how to piss off your enemies by acting a certain way.
5>[Blood Manipulation](Common) -> [Blood Manipulation](trash): You can control the rate at which you bleed.
6> [Shade Cloak](Rare) -> [Shade Cloak: Allows you to temporarily shift your body into a shadow state and phase through attacks and magic. It does not have weaknesses other than light and holy magic, but you can only turn into a shadow for . 5 seconds at a time before a 6-second cooldown.
7> [Portal Creation](Epic) -> Portal: Allows you to place a portal in your line of sight that is connected to a previously placed portal; only two portals may be active at any given time.
8> [New Order](Mythical)# -> [Order](Epic): Lets the user place an order that slightly alters the properties of matter and energy that are in physical contact with the user. Like making water viscous or making solids flow like a liquid. Only one order can be placed at a time, and energy is drained based on the scale and magnitude of the change.
9> [Imp](Legendary)# -> [Lesser Imp](Elite): People and things have a very hard time registering your presence, but they can if you make yourself a nuisance or they have a will strong enough to look for you.
10> [Clock blocker](Epic) -> [Stasis](Rare): let the user 'freeze' a target in time, but they can be moved, and damaging the target undoes the 'freeze.'
11> [Contract Creation](Rare) -> [Contract Integrity](Uncommon): All the signatories of any contract signed when [Contract Integrity] is active find it almost impossible to breach the clause of the contract.
12> [Quicksand](Uncommon) -> [Quicksand](Common): Allows you to turn ground into quicksand that grabs and pulls anyone who steps on it but is slower and shallower than the uncommon variety.
13> [Mystic Eyes of Depth Perception](Trash) -> [Vision](Trash-): Allows you to see as long as you have an functional and appropriate organ/appendage/cybernetic, etc.
14> [Match](Trash) -> [Ember](Trash-): Allows you to create a singular tiny ember.
15> [Clone](Epic) -> [Body Double](Rare): Allows you to create a singular body double that continuously drains your energy to manifest. It can be puppeteered with your mind.
The ones with the # mark are those that he has kept hidden from Fredric and those that he plans to keep hidden. Oh? Look at that... it's time~.
The entirety of the crew was in the middle of another round of racing when they were hit by a wave of something making everyone extremely nauseous and dizzy, their bodies burning with ridiculously high fever, their muscles feeling twisted, their joints feeling swollen, and their skin feeling like it was peeling away and was extremely itchy. Paradoxically, their minds felt pleasantly floaty and dopey.
Herbie was tilting extremely side to side as his internal systems were going haywire trying to make sense of the mangled input and compensate for it. Vorstin was secured in a seat, but Dud and Fredric were on the floor. Thankfully, the ship was designed in a way that prevented things from rolling around in cases like this, but it still smacked the two humans against the control panel whenever Herbie switched directions.
While my lovely explorers were experiencing the first stages of the Curse, the proprietor of the wave was at the head of the ship that was slowly closing in.
"That's a *Hic* funny ship," slurred the captain of the Drunk Pirates.
"Hey! Hey~ Captain captain capi~tan" annoyed the totally wasted first mate.
"What!?*Hic*"
"Ya think the ship is alive? Since it got affected by your power an' all" said the first mate, excitement and awe mixing with drunken joy.
The captain sobered up. A Klabautermann was a miracle and something the child, desperate for friends, had dreamed of; if there was even a small chance that this ship had one, he wanted to meet it. Thinking of his childhood reminded him of the pieces of shit that were his parents, and his hand went to the very poisoned, mostly alcohol drink that hung on his belt.
He emptied his flask and swayed over to his first mate and slapped him, sobering him up with his devil fruit, and grabbed his collar, bringing their faces as close as physically possible without it becoming something else.
"I am going to go get a refill, and by the time I get back, I want every single person on the funny ship striped and tied up BUT but if I see even a single part of the ship damaged, you will never ever ever be able to to to..." The captain let go as he tried to think of an appropriate threat.
"No worries, Captain; I know exactly what to do." The sober, frightened, frustrated first mate of the drunk pirates told his captain. The captain nodded absentmindedly and disappeared into the captain's cabin.
The first mate stood there as he glared at the closed door of the captain's room and took a deep breath, calming himself down, and turned to the crew, half of whom were blacked out while the rest were at various levels of it, with the most sober of them manning the cannons.
"Captain's orders! We are taking the ship intact!" He yelled, receiving disappointed groans and a few cheers as a few of the crew prepared gangplanks.
The 'funny' ship, as the captain put it, had stopped swaying and was eerily still. The pirates had no problems securing the gangplanks to the strange ship, nor did they have any problems boarding it, but they ran into another problem.
There were no obvious entrances to the inside of the ship.
"I guess I will have to make my own," said a rather burly pirate as he lifted a large axe.
The first mate opened his mouth to stop him, but a blood-red sword decapitated him, and he found himself falling onto the main deck of his ship. He got up and looked at the other ship just in time to see brood red disks cut the gangplanks and a hole open in air, and metal men stepped through it.
"I am going to ask this once," said the man towering over the metal men with a terrifying look on his face. "Where is the asshole with the devil fruit?"
"Kill him!" ordered the first mate as he ran toward the captain's cabin. He banged on the door as the sound of bullets hitting metal and screams of terror rang in his background. He turned his head to look behind and froze at the absolute massacre that was occurring behind him.
"Why is everyone so noisy!?" slurred the pirate captain as he opened the door with a bang and sobered instantly as he locked eyes with Dud. He radiated a strong wave of his power, completely emptying everything stored in his devil fruit power, and bolted for the escape dinghy accessed through the captain's cabin.
The wave spread through the pirate ship, killing the first mate and any pirate unlucky enough to be close by. By the time it had reached Dud, it had lost some of its killing potential but not its lethality. Dud was hit with so many lethal symptoms that he would have gone into a coma at the minimum. Thankfully [Wheel of Mahoraga] had spun enough that he retained consciousness.
"New Order: I am immune to devil fruit effects," he whispered, and the effect was instantaneous. Dud was functional again and absolutely furious. He raced after the captain and caught him dropping into the ocean on a dingy.
Dud used the [Blood Sword] to quickly relieve the pirate captain of his head. Dud took a few calming breaths as his golems finished massacring the surviving pirates. Dud returned onto the main deck and was alarmed to see Herbie swaying dangerously. He quickly portaled to Herbie and placed his hands on Herbie's deck.
"New Order: Herbie is immune to devil fruit effects," but it did not help at all as Herbie was still swaying.
Dud swapped [Lesser Imp] with [Wheel of Adaptation], and soon Herbie stabilized, and Dud collapsed in relief.
(Worried Beep)
"Shit!" cursed Dud as he portaled to the bridge and quickly picked up Fredric from the floor and put him in his room. Dud quickly returned to the bridge and picked up Vorstin and laid her next to Fredric.
Dud examined them, and the expertise he gained from [Queen of All Trades] told him that nothing was wrong, but they were clearly in pain and in a coma.
"New Order: Fredric V Grain is immune to devil fruit effects," said Dud as he held Fredric's hand, and once again nothing happened. Dud cursed and revoked the order, shifting it back to Herbie, and granted [Wheel of Adaptation] to Fredric, and while he did not wake up, his expression eased up.
Seeing that work, Dud transferred [Wheel of Adaptation] from Herbie to Vorstin, and her breathing eased, but they did not wake up. Dud collapsed on to a chair and covered his face with his hands. He let out a huge sigh and lifted his head to see the inventory page of the Gacha had opened automatically and a particular item was literally glowing.
Dud summoned [Holy Antidote] and saw it was a small vial with barely two drops of liquid inside. He quickly administered it to both of them, and soon Vorstin woke up and immediately slammed into him, honking in fright.
He pet her to calm her down and reassured her as he relaxed.
"What happened?" asked Fredric as he sat up and looked around.
"We got unlucky," said Dud as he told him what happened, and when he described the pirates' jolly roger, he was interrupted by Fredric with:
"Holy Nika, You destroyed the Drunk Pirates?" asked Fredric in awe.
Dud looked at him, the word "Nika" stirring something inside him that he chose to ignore. "That's a stupid name. So they were famous?"
"They were one of the 5 pirate crews with a bounty over 20,000,000 berries," said Fredric with his signature deadpan.
"Huh, they were pretty weak tho other than the devil fruit, I mean. Do you know the name of the devil fruit the captain had?" asked Dud curiously, receiving a nod from Fredric.
"He had the hangover-hangover fruit." Dud gave him a look, silently asking if he was serious.
"Yeah, an unassuming name, I know."
"How are you feeling?" asked Dud, going somber.
"...Like I had the greatest nap ever. "How?" asked Fredric, astonished.
"I had to use the antidote," said Dud, lifting the empty vial.
"...Well ...We were in real danger, huh?" Fredric said with a sigh.
"We need to set up watch rotations. Also, do you want to loot the ship?" Fredric raised an eyebrow in response.
"What did you want to do with it?"
"Herbie hasn't had a chance to test his cannons yet," said Dud and received a nod.
"You have the golems out?" asked Fredric as he got out of bed.
"Yeah, they are on the ship and they will listen to you." Dud said as he rose.
Fredric went to the pirate ship to see what he could loot, and Dud created a clone that went to the bridge while he went to his room still carrying Vorstin.
He sat in his chair comforting Vorstin for quite some time, and after the fowl calmed down, she left to return to her nest. Dud was about to leave when the Gacha caught his attention, and he sat back down and brought up the notifications.
{Achievement: Devil fruit encounter. Don't forget your curse.
1X Gold ticket}
{Achievement: Big fish in a small pond.
1X Platinum ticket}
Dud silently stared at the modified notification for quite some time.
"You are alive, aren't you?" he asked and received no reply. Dud chuckled and engaged the tickets.
Gold:
[Adept Medicine]
|Elite Skill|
You are very skilled in all areas of medicine; you can do surgery, diagnose conditions, create medicine, etc. You are fully qualified as a veteran in all areas of medicine. You can also make your own medicine given the ingredients, even magical ones such as potions, depending on the world you are in.
Platinum:
[Waypoint]
|Elite Ability|
Allows you to leave behind waypoints that you can warp to at any time; setting a waypoint on your location or traveling to it takes 10 seconds. The number of waypoints you can have at any time is equal to your ability slot count x 3.
Dud chuckled with the [Queen of All Trades] and [Adept Medicine]; he was now more than a qualified doctor, and the ship only lacked a cook. Oh wait, with [Queen of All Trades] and [Clone], he was basically a one-man crew; that thought made Dud depressed for some reason.
[Portal Creation] rendered [Waypoint] obsolete unless he could attach a [Waypoint] to an object and not a place, but that can come later.
Dud suddenly remembered that he had completely forgotten to pickup the Den Den mushies and left to pick them up while his clone or the other one stayed in the bridge keeping look out and plotting a course to the reverse mountain while Fredric directed the golems in looting the pirate ship.