Chapter 00110010 00110000

Everyone's bodies went rigid at the sudden knock at the door. It was unprecedented and unnerving. We all looked at each other nervously. "Were we followed?" Lily whispered to Henry. He shook his head and slowly approached the door. We all approached it and formed a ring so we could pounce at the first sign of trouble. Henry opened the door and let out a small sigh of relief. He opened the door wider to reveal a small boy about 14 wearing a white toga with a pair of white wings on his back. "Icarus Mail service with a delivery!" He shouted his voice obviously not having hit puberty yet. "I have a package for..." He lifted a small hexagonal box to his face.

"A Mr. Silence... or is it Sil? From the Overseers of the Dome." He said while quickly looking around at us all in expectation and hope. I sighed before stepping forward. "That's me. Need me to sign anything?" I asked. He shook his head and handed over the package which glowed emerald green. "We're all good. Have a good day!" He shouted as his wings spread and he exploded skyward blowing a halo of dust across the yard.

I shielded my face as he flew away across the sky. "Lily... I remember you saying that battleforms weren't allowed outside the dome. And I get that pixies and them are allowed cause that's their only form...Yet why are some people like that kid able to use them without repercussions?" I asked as I watched the kid dive into another area of the town with a larger package.

Lily looked at me tapping her chin slightly. "Some people dont have battle strength like us. Quite frankly Icarus has no abilities besides delivery based ones and incredible speed to run away. That and tracking of course. Every time he delivers a package he gets points though which is good." She said as she once again began to tend to her plant.

Beth was inspecting the box with interest. Her face was only a couple inches away from it like she was trying to see through it. "Do you want me to open it or just let you stare at it?" I asked with a cocky grin. She pouted and kicked my shin. "If you know I'm curious then open the damn thing instead of antagonizing me!" She shouted at me while everybody else laughed.

I put it down on the table and read the card that was attached. " To Mr. Silence of the Death Hunter faction. Here is you and your factions reward for placing first in the Battlefield of Fortune. Sincerely Management." I read aloud and then stopped.

"Wait. Management? We have management? Who manages to handle 59 floors with hundreds of thousands of people on them?" I asked as I held the note in my hands.

Horacio shrugged as he tapped the floor with his foot. " We dont know.We just assume the system is actually what's managing things and is just trying to make everybody comfortable by saying someone's in charge.

I felt uneasiness enter my mind as I eyed the card. I had enough questions to last a lifetime yet more kept popping up. I placed the card down then stood there in embarrassment as I realized something. I had no idea how to open it. "You just have to say open." Beth said seemingly able to read my mind. I let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks." I said under my breath.

"Open." I said loudly. The corners of the box glowed gold as the box began to spin like a top. I backed up expecting danger of some kind. Suddenly the box popped like a party popper. Four gold orbs and one diamond colored orb floated out of the box and did a swirling dance through the air. They spun and twisted around the table till they sat before us individually. The diamond one sat in front of me while the others reached out to grab the gold ones. I slowly reached out and picked up the glittering diamond ball. As soon as I held it in my palm it opened like a flower to reveal what was within. It was a card. Like a playing card from back home with monsters or gear presented on them. It was black on the back with a gold glowing hexagon. The front had white trim surrounding a picture with a black background. It was a set of gold armor. A sun was emblazoned across the front and a pair of gold wings were spread out of the back of it. It was broad at the top but slimmed down closer to the waist turning into white cloth at the bottom extendeding to just above the feet.

A name read across the top of the card which I read out loud. " Armor of the Sun God. Rank-A equipment. (Incompatible). Able to emit a blinding light when struck damaging and blinding opponents based on whether they are lower ranked than the user." I read as a sudden sad expression went across my face.

"Just had to be incompatible." I grumbled. Everyone looked at me with happy expressions. "Hey! You got good armor you can auction off then." Horacio said as his orb opened revealing 10 Rank-C parts. It was the same for Horacio and Beth. Lily had 5 Rank-A parts in hers.

They were all smiling. "You know... I guess all this has it's perks." Horacio said as he morphed and absorbed his parts into his chest. Everyone did the same except for me. I grabbed the card and placed it on the table.

"Guess I'll have to take this to Mercury to get him to appraise it and see what I can get for it." I said before hanging my head a bit and letting out a disappointed sigh. Then a question dawned on me. "Why did it give me something incompatible?" I asked out loud. Beth was the one who answered. "The rewards are given based on a randomizer for the diamond orb. Everybody else in the faction with you gets gold orbs that give them a certain amount of parts for participation. The faction who comes in second gets silver orbs with less parts but ones they can use all the same. Third place factions and below will receive point rewards for participation in the event. Though the faster you died off the less you get. I once saw a person get one point cause he died as soon as he stepped through the gateway." Beth said with a shrug as she put her parts into her handkerchief and face. Nothing really changed for her though. Henry put his parts into his newly acquired scythe which he couldn't stop smiling about. Meanwhile Lily applied her parts to her slightly exposed chest. She glowed a little before smiling a bit. I heard her whisper something about only having a few more parts to go. I shrugged as I picked the card up.

"Anyone wanna come with me to figure this thing out?" I said and not a soul responded. I shrugged before slowly opening the door and leaving for Mercury's bizarre. The streets were dizzying and the colors blinding even if I wasn't looking at them. I easily found my way to the elevator despite it all though. I had to ask Interface for the floor I needed to go to.

It took only half an hour to find my way there. The crowd still made way for me which was great. Though it was made more awkward by not having anyone there with me. I had almost made it to Mercury's stall when a tall feline woman in a red suit blocked my way.

She was well muscled and had a set of cat ears on her head. I went to step around her and she moved the way I went. "I am trying to get over to see Mercury. Please move." I said politely. The burly woman let out a pompous laugh and pushed my shoulder.

"You ain't seeing Mercury till you get through me kid." She said with a grin that all bullies use. "Guess Anubis isn't all he's cracked up to be." She said loudly. I looked at her and then and I saw it. I knew which God she was.

"So Bastet is being played by you huh. Never guessed being a pompous, self-rightous, fluffy, B!+€# would be enough to play her. What did you have to do? Eat catnip while you were alive?" I growled. I saw her muscles twitch as she got ready to charge at me. Unfortunately a long staff with a pair of wings and two snakes on it slapped into the top of her head.

"Leah! I told you to not bother important customers just cause you want to brawl!" Mercury said as Leah rubbed the top of her head despite having no pain receptors.

He held out his hand to me. "Forgive my sister. She has a harsh temper and a love for fights." Mercury said with an embarrased smile. I nodded and shook his hand. He leaned down and helped her off the ground and patted her off.

"I'm not joining the warrior faction sis. And you know that. So please stop asking me to. And please for Pete's sake stop aggravating my customers." He said as he turned to me. "Now I believe you have business with me."

I looked at him with shock evident on my face despite having no eyes or eyebrows. "Lily sent me a message saying to expect you if you managed to find your way here." He said with a bigger smile. I nodded. "I guess I should thank her when I get back." I said quietly. He slapped my back and I was moved into his back room by the force of it. He quickly closed the door behind him to give us some privacy.

"Now Lily doesn't contact me often to inform me something is coming unless it was interesting. And that happens less often than you think." He motioned to a soft tan colored chair for me to sit. He sat across from me in a red chair that was similar. I pulled out the card nervously and placed it down and his eyes went wide.

"Well I'll be. Ra's missing armor turns up in the hands of a rook. Now that is interesting." He said as he looked closer at the card. "Can you pull it out for me to see?" He asked while nervously wringing his hands. "I would but I dont know how." I said sheepishly. He looked at me and almost face palmed.

"Of course you dont." He sighed. "Just tap the card and say Recieve." He said pointing at the card. I did as he asked and tapped the card. "Recieve." A ball of light rose from the card leaving the place where the armor had been blank. The card disintegrated into data bits afterward. The ball of light suddenly popped like a soap bubble leaving a large set of armor laying across the table that sat between Mercury and myself. It was at least 6 feet in length and the gold shined against the lights. The wings actually moved a little making the piece seem almost alive.

We both stared in silence before I sighed realizing I had been holding my breath. Mercury sat there with a happy look on his face as he brought out his strange magnifying glass. When he did I got a closer look at it. It was actually a monocle with a snakes eye in the middle and tiny wings on the side. "This is definitely Ra's armor. He will be desperately wanting it. I would guess charging him 8000 points wouldn't be too much to ask." I looked at Mercury in stunned silence. "You dont know do you?" He asked as he paused. "Naturally you dont. You're a rook. Ra is the announcer for the Dark Dome. The light in the sky! The one who proclaimed you a winner! This is his!" He said pointing at the armor laying before us.

"Well what do I do?!" I said as my nerves took hold. Ra was king of the Gods in mythology. Someone who has that for an avatar isn't a simple person. Mercury pulled out a book that seemed to be a phone book. He went over to a glowing hexagon on the wall and started talking to it. Soon another voice was talking back to him in an irritable tone. Mercury became excited and as he did the voice on the other end got excited as well. After a couple moments the hexagon turned dark and he walked back to his seat.

"I've arranged a meeting here in a few minutes. This guy has been searching for that armor since he came here." He said as he pulled out a set of armored claws from a basket and started examining them. "How long has this guy been looking for this thing?" I said nervously. Mercury looked at me with a small grin. "A hundred and twenty three years."