Jason tried putting the red tablet back into the inventory. His first attempt was to shove it into the screen, which surprisingly worked. It vanished from his hands and reappeared as an icon.
“That’s disconcerting.”
Jason’s grip on reality was feeling increasingly tenuous. The screens were odd, but could conceivably, if implausibly, be the product of hidden hologram projectors. It was when they started responding to his thoughts that he started to get worried, and now he was pulling objects out of thin air. He closed the inventory and pulled up his character sheet again. Next down the ability list was the map, which he’d already looked at, then astral affinity.
Ability: [Astral Affinity]
Increased resistance to dimension effects and astral forces. Dimension abilities have increased effect and transcendent damage is increased.
“No idea what that means.”
Only one ability remained.
Ability: [Mysterious Stranger]
Language adaptation.
Essence, awakening stone and skill-book absorption.
Immunity to identification and tracking effects.
“Language adaptation? Is that how I read the weird writing on the tablet?”
He took the tablet out again.
“What is this thing?”
Item: [World-Phoenix Token] (transcendent rank, legendary)
???. (consumable, ???)
Effect: ???
Effect: ???
Uses remaining: 1/1
“Question marks. That’s enlightening. Do I have to pay a wizard to identify items?”
He put the tablet away, closing all the open windows except for the map.
“Alright, then,” he said, looking up and down the pathway he was on. Neither offered anything to recommend it over the other.
“It’s no yellow wood,” he told himself, “but I guess it’s time to Robert Frost this thing.”
He picked a direction at random and set off.
“I really wish I had clothes on.”
Jason was walking through the maze, the map open in front of him. It was being unveiled as he walked. His current plan was to reveal enough that he could plot a way out. He froze when he heard a rustle in the hedges.
“Um, g’day?” he called out, hands moving to nervously hide his unmentionables. “Hello? Buenos días? Guten morgen?”
There wasn’t any response.
“Maybe it’s not morning. Guten tag?”
There still wasn’t any response.
“Yeah, Jason,” he muttered to himself, “that was the problem. You got the time of day wrong.”
He shrugged.
“Makes as much sense as anything else here, I guess.”
He was about to resume walking when a window appeared.
New Quest: [No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service]
For unknown reasons, your immediate area has become infested with lesser monsters.
Objective: Discover the reason lesser monsters have infested the area 0/1
Reward: Simple shirt.
Bonus Objective: Defeat ten lesser monsters 0/10.
Reward: Simple footwear.
“Monsters? That doesn’t sound plausible.”
Jason was looking around suspiciously when something small came hurtling from the bottom of a hedge. His hands shot back over his privates, which left his head an exposed target. He was blinded by something latching onto his face, something sharp digging painfully into his scalp. He yanked it off with both hands, screaming as a chunk of skin went with it. He dropped to his knees, slamming the thing into the ground, over and over until it stopped struggling.
You have defeated [Potent Hamster]
Defeat lesser monsters 1/10.
Jason released the creature and scuttled back, still on his hands and knees. His heart was racing, the wounds on his head throbbing. Blood trickled down his face and he wiped it away from his eyes.
“What in the merry hell is happening? How did a hamster jump on my head?”
Jason looked over at the creature. According to the window that popped up it was some kind of hamster, but was easily as big as Jason’s head. That made it bigger than any hamster he had heard of. It was distended from being pounded into the dirt, as well as streaked with blood from Jason’s head. He crawled forwards cautiously, ready to jump back. Extending a hesitant finger, he poked at it.
Would you like to loot [Potent Hamster]?
Jason rocked back, hands clutching his bald head. His fingers found his wound and he yelped in pain.
“What the hell is going on?”
2
Of Course Magic is a Thing
Jason read the screen again.
Would you like to loot [Potent Hamster]?
“Yes?”
The body of the dead creature made a fizzing sound, like a rapid chemical reaction. The body started melting rapidly, first the flesh, then even the skeleton, all dissolving into rainbow-coloured smoke. It seemed pretty until it hit Jason with a stench thick as cheese, like burned hair and rotting meat. He scrambled away to escape the rancid smell, dry heaving on all fours. Looking over as he hacked out coughs, he saw the creature’s body had vanished, as if it never existed at all. He ignored the window that popped up, dropping onto his back in the soft grass.
“I hate this,” he told the sky. “I’m naked, bleeding, and have no idea where I am. I can’t think of any better explanation for what’s happening than that I’ve lost my bloody mind. Worst of all, I’m going to get sunburnt in places that don’t see a lot of outdoor exposure.”
He sat up with a groan, reading the screen waiting for him.
[Monster Core (Lesser)] has been added to your inventory.
[Healing Unguent (Iron)] has been added to your inventory.
10 [Lesser Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.
“Oh, straight into the inventory. That place that lets me make things appear and disappear. I’ve definitely gone insane.”
Now familiar with opening and closing the screens, the inventory window appeared with a simple thought. Two more of the forty grids were now occupied with little icons, while the currency counter now had the number ten listed over the first of the six coin symbols.
Jason took out the item labelled healing unguent. It was a small, round tin, reminding Jason of the nasty rubbing medicine his nanna would put on scrapes when he was a kid. At least this tin wasn’t rusty, like the one that had been under Nanna’s laundry sink longer than Jason had been alive. Nanna was his maternal grandmother, while his father’s mother was strictly Grandmother. She was a retired otorhinolaryngologist and had no truck with rusty tins of ointment.
He took a closer look at the tin in his hand.
Item: [Healing Unguent (Iron)] (iron rank, common)
Topical healing ointment. Inexpensive concoction ideal for superficial injuries (consumable, healing).
Effect: Apply directly to injuries to heal. Effect reduced on bronze-rank or higher individuals.
Uses remaining: 5/5.
Unlike the tablet, the magic screens had no problem identifying the tin. Jason pulled off the lid to discover it really did look and smell like the ointment under Nanna’s laundry sink. There was a sharp, medicinal smell that cut through even the lingering stench of the dead creature. As for the contents, it was an oily substance that looked like butterscotch sauce made from dubiously sourced ingredients.
“How did I get ointment from a hamster? How did it come in a tin?”
With an exploratory finger he gently prodded the wound on his head.