Of Recovery and Research

Moments later, John found himself back in his room, the artificial light overwhelming compared to the dimness of his dungeon. The faint whir of the ceiling fan was all but silent in contrast to the nearly constant storm that had encompassed the dungeon. His ears rang for a moment.

’That was a lot less dramatic than the reverse.’

Blinking off the spots in his eyes, John pulled out his phone and checked the time. He’d been gone for just over an hour, yet it felt like days had passed. He ached in every bone and muscle he had.

’Honestly,’ The Gamer thought as he sat down and took his shoes off, ’an hour is pretty short for prog on a dungeon. Only a single boss, as well. Small mercies for a tutorial, I’m guessing.’

I mean, there was more in there you could have explored.

A shudder ran through him as he remembered the mutilation that only Gamer’s Body had spared him.

’Yeah, I’m not thinking that was a good idea.’

Exhaustion crept into his movements as he threw his bag haphazardly to the side. He set aside all thoughts about the dungeon, the loot, and his powers as the desire to take a shower and reset overtook him.

John wandered across the hall to his bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror as he splashed his face with water. His face was stained with blood from his encounters in the wreck, the left leg of his jeans was tattered from the boss’ final move, and he was covered in sand and silt and grime. His clothes were still damp from his fall into the water.

The Gamer switched his relatively clean armor pieces to his alternate armor slots and took off his clothes, sorting which articles were trash and which he could reuse. He stored away his staff and climbed into the shower, turning the water to its hottest setting.

John finally began to relax, letting heat overtake him. As The Gamer’s body slowly acclimated to the heat and he decompressed, he took some time to start sorting out where he needed to go from here in his mind.

Five stat points and a talent point sat on his character sheet, waiting to be used.. He was vaguely aware of the fact that he’d cracked a thousand dollars over the course of the evening. More money than he’d ever had in his life, outside of a college fund, was now his to do with as he pleased.

It was hard for him to really muster excitement for it though, as the adrenaline and dopamine hits of dungeon success fell off him. He figured he wouldn’t need to worry about any of his subscriptions for a while, and he could probably get some nice skins in his favorite gacha whenever he got around to opening it again, but those thoughts were not his focus.

’I survived, but barely. There was no more margin for error than I gave it, as far as I can see. I’ve got real equipment now, but would that have made a difference?’ He pondered, tilting his head back and closing his eyes, allowing hot water to roll over his face, ’Was that meant to be as bad as it was?’

No reply.

The Gamer sighed and returned to enjoying hot water.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finishing his shower, John realized that there was one obvious solution, as much as he dreaded trying it.

“It’s dangerous to go alone…” he muttered.

The Gamer stalled that throughline as much as he could, finally ordering a couple of pizzas for himself and his mom. While he waited for them to be delivered, he threw his clothes and shoes into the washing machine, hoping to erase what signs of the dungeon remained.

Half an hour later, as he chowed down, John realized that he couldn’t keep putting off figuring out a plan, and that there was no sense ignoring the best solution. He knew of at least five people at his school who also had some kind of magic, at least as far as his quest measurement had been concerned.

’And one of them is at least friendly,’ John thought, stretching out on his couch.

’I have five new stat points as well, so maybe I can at least try with some extra Charisma behind me,’ he considered, finishing his second slice. ’Yeah, because talking to people always works out great for John Newman, that’s why he has so many friends.’

The concept of Charisma was a little strange to John, honestly. It seemed in many ways superfluous to making an effective combat build, especially with the direction he’d already inadvertently started on, yet there was the ever-present allure of normalcy to go with it. How much better could life have been if he just knew how to talk to people?

’If I had a couple more points of Charisma, would I still have been bullied every day?’

He was so naturally bad at interacting with people, he thought, and probably pretty unlikeable. How much would a few stat points really help someone like him? Maybe, he wondered, it would be better instead to finish evening out stats and clearing a couple more dungeons first.

’Don’t think like that, John… If I don’t commit to it, I’m going to talk myself out of it,’ he realized, squeezing his fist painfully. ’I hate talking to people, but it wasn’t so bad today… I’ve gotta try. Tomorrow, I will try and ask the cute library girl about magic.’

The anxious alchemist opened up his skill menu, and, before the nerve could leave him, he committed all 5 points from his level up into Charisma. He nearly choked on a bite of pizza as he looked at it.

’It’s OK… it’s OK… I hope. All five might have been a little impulsive. At least it’s a nice, pretty, even number.’

Finishing his meal, John put his stats out of his mind and spent a little time putting back together a reasonable armor and weapon swap loadout. The freshly washed pair of jeans and an old t-shirt formed his under layer, and, along with his newfound armor, went into his second equipment slot. He still wasn’t comfortable moving around with the chestplate on, and he ended up removing it again, but kept it in his inventory in case he suddenly needed it.

He moved his melee weapons and old focus into inventory slots that were easy to reach in case of emergency, and kept only his staff equipped. The Gamer then stashed away some of his excess drops in boxes around his room, debating what to do with the ooze.

’My inventory seems to keep things fairly well preserved, I guess? The pancakes and stuff seem to be doing alright in… wherever my inventory puts things,’ John pondered, re-wrapping the ooze vials and putting them away. ’I have way too many systems I need to do some rules checking on.’

John let his head flop down as dozens of questions flooded his weary mind. ’Would my phone get a signal in my inventory? Do things age in there or are they preserved? Where do they go? Is it some pocket dimension or am I putting everything in the janitor’s closet of the Oceanview Motel?’

Theories about his powers and the skill gems and their interactions with his items overwhelmed John, and he caved, getting up and grabbing an old composition book from his room. He spent the next few minutes sketching out basic tests for his powers. The Gamer wanted to isolate some of his mechanics so he could make better decisions with his skill points and stats in the future.

’I need a firmer base to go off,’ he decided, gathering items from around his house. ’There’s not exactly a wiki for this, and my codex hasn’t fully unlocked yet either, so I gotta start somewhere. Speaking of, what happened with that; did I miss something?’

John looked upwards, though he didn’t really expect an answer.

Watching you figure things out a little first is more fun.

’Alright, I guess,’ John thought with an exasperated sigh. ’I’ll play ball.’

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First, John set to trying to understand the boundaries and rules of his inventory. He needed to know what the limitations were of his ability to store things.

The Gamer started by testing weight limits. The sword he’d picked up had come with a note that it took two inventory slots, and he’d assumed that it had been because of his own inability to move it. John didn’t have access to a ton of options, but with the sword as an upper bound, he started stuffing bags full of the heaviest things he could find until eventually he reached the point at which a suitcase took two spaces.

The limit seemed to be loosely based on what John could have carried on his own. Once he couldn’t easily carry it, the item moved to taking two slots. Size also seemed to play a factor, as he found out when he’d tried to store the largest luggage bag in the house, stuffed to the brim with clothes and pillows.

Inadvertently, he’d also discovered that he could nest certain items within bags to limit how much inventory space they took up. While he could compress his selection of food and replacement clothes to a single travel bag in his inventory, none of his magical items, including his gems, would let themselves be stored like that.

’It’s a little odd that something like the staff doesn’t cause any issues,’ John thought, setting up further tests. ’The sword, for that matter, feels like it ought to meet both the weight and space limits. Perhaps there’s another exception for magic items, or items I find in dungeons at least.’

The Gamer jotted down a couple things in his composition book before moving on to condition testing.

He tried shaking up a soda bottle and stored it in his inventory, followed by a warm cup of cocoa, fresh from the microwave. At the last minute, John added a cup of ice, and placed it in his inventory in the slot right next to the hot chocolate.

’I doubt that one will matter,’ he thought, sitting down in his room to wait, ’but I should make sure that the things in my inventory aren’t all stored next to each other or something.’

As John started browsing reddit, letting time pass for the temperature test, he checked the time and realized his mother was later than usual. Slightly worried, he sent her a message.

John: Everything alright? Haven’t heard from you.

There was no response for several minutes. He sighed, pocketing his phone, and returned to the kitchen to complete his experiments.

All three of his test items were retrieved in their initial conditions. The cocoa was hot, the soda was ready to explode, and the ice even still had its thin coat of frost.

’Preservation achieved, then,’ John noted, writing that down in his book. ’On to the phone testing.’

The next test was completed quickly from the comfort of The Gamer’s room. He verified that he couldn’t get a bluetooth connection from his phone from within his inventory; however, his phone did get a signal. Neither GPS nor FindMyPhone worked though.

Using Discord from his PC, he sent notifications to his phone while it was stored away. Interestingly enough, not only was John able to receive the notifications, but they even appeared in his UI, though he couldn’t find a way to reply without retrieving his phone.

’Maybe something that could be updated,’ he speculated, walking downstairs and heading out to his backyard. ’Perhaps a potential talent point expenditure.’

With that, John headed outside and moved on to the third stretch of his testing.

Standing in the slightly damp grass of his backyard, John took in the evening air. There was a freshness to the air that he’d missed on the evening’s adventure. Traces of his earlier skill development remained, scattered around the yard.

The temperature fluctuated between a musty warmth and a passing chill, depending on the breeze. Shuddering, the amateur alchemist drew forth his staff from his inventory and set up to experiment with his gems.

’I really hate to mess with the gems, considering the slot downsides,’ John thought, organizing those he had in his inventory, ’but I need to know for certain what affects what.

’It seemed to me like the [Earth Spike] was my default combat option, but I can also miss with it pretty easily. The [Air Burst] was easier to use, and clutch in a pinch, but lacked upfront damage…’

John scratched his chin.

’I guess since [Lesser Earth Spike] is already socketed, I’ll leave it where it is for now. Hopefully the damage from the staff will support the other enough to justify it. At least I won’t be too inefficient with the XP losses here…’

John removed the [Escape Dungeon] gem from his staff, storing safely away the pretty purple gem, the light fading from his staff. He replaced it with the [Lesser Air Burst] gem, and his staff flashed with a pale green color before the amber light of the lighthouse’s beacon returned, faint hints of the green of his air skill flickering among the shadows it cast.

’It’s pretty, honestly,’ he thought. ’This is definitely the fun part.’

John focused his mana, running it into the soft wood of his weapon. In response, the staff began to heat up, growing from a faint warmth at the core to a vibrant heat - one which did not hurt him at all. The lantern hanging from the top began to wobble slightly.

A swirl of warm air formed in front of The Gamer, centered just in front of the hanging lantern, with radiant amber and green mana spiraling around. John allowed the spell to grow to its full size, turning into a truly beautiful spectacle of element and mana. Pleasantly hot splashes of air occasionally brushed across his face.

Planting the weapon into the dirt with its pointed end, John tested the second functionality. Once planted, he felt an emptiness within his weapon, an opening - a yearning - for mana. He responded in kind and poured his happy blue bar into the staff. The spell he was channeling began to enlarge until it was twice the size he was used to.

Wind whipped and spun around him, flashing brilliant colors. Yellows and golds and viridescent shades flowed from his newfound weapon. The temperature continued to rise. John’s shirt fluttered under the **** of the air around him. He allowed himself to bathe in the majesty of the spell for a full minute before completing the test, launching the engorged spell into the air.

It burst with a brilliant flash, vibrant green and amber waves going in all directions before disappearing as quickly as it had begun. Wistfully, John remembered how much the air he manipulated desired freedom. He hoped that the elements he’d just used would enjoy having it back.

With the part of his testing that he’d most been anticipating complete, The Gamer moved on to simple rules testing. He verified that even with the [Lesser Air Burst] gem socketed in the staff, it only received the elemental conversion when he actually had the weapon drawn. On the upside, he was still able to use skills which were socketed into items that he didn’t have out or equipped, though they lost any bonuses they might have had from them.

John spent some time in his backyard wondering if he should try using his [Reshape Matter] on a skill gem directly. He wasn’t entirely sure what any of them were made of. For all he knew, he could either directly contribute to improving the low quality of the gems he’d created or they’d immediately explode.

’It’s probably not worth risking anything just yet,’ he decided, heading back inside. ’Not until I have skills to spare. If that can happen.’

’Nice,’ The Gamer thought, checking out the new tab in his codex. ’Glad to see it wasn’t for nothing.’

John verified that the codex mostly contained the information that he’d already figured out, though it did have some clarifications on stat relations (confirming that STR affected health regen and END governed max HP). Additionally, it gathered a list of his currently acquired gems and their qualities, which he surmised would eventually be important once he figured out how they mattered beyond cosmetics and how to change them.

His exploration of the reward was interrupted by a notification that he’d gotten a text from his mother.

Mom: Sorry. Long day at work. Stopped at the mall to get something on the way home. Leave pizza in the microwave please.

’What’s she getting from the mall?’ he wondered, replying with a thumbs up. ’Whatever. Glad everything’s OK.’

John closed up the pizza boxes and stacked them inside the microwave for his mother before realizing that he needed to restock. He’d used up almost all the food he’d taken and all of the water, so The Gamer set out to raid the pantry.

He was able to replace most of the dried things like granola bars, some rice, and other things like that, but he’d expended the majority of the water bottles in the house. He settled on Gatorade instead, wondering if a sports drink might give more regeneration than plain water.

From the garage, John managed to loot a second flashlight, and an old headlamp to replace the damaged flashlight he’d used that afternoon, though the quality of both was dubious.

’I ought to go shopping on my own at this rate,’ The Gamer realized, as he finished pocketing things from around the house. ’It is going to get real expensive real quick if I just start burning through clothes and food and garage tools for these dungeons every day. Something to keep in mind, since I have the money to do it myself now.’

Then, preparations and study complete, The Gamer finally caved into sleep, earlier than usual, both hopeful and anxious to see what the next day would bring.