'Who would want to stand there and stare at their own mangled body?', Jack thought to himself. 'Who would want to grab a dead body and store it in their house as furniture? I mean I guess some people do that but, yeah I'm not insane enough for that.'
He stared for another minute, not entirely processing properly. 'Wasn't the stuff in my pockets still there? Maybe my driver's license could be useful somehow. Let those tiny men know who I am, or something. Make them like me, then start trolling them.' Finally, he got a hold of himself. 'Right.'
He walked the few steps forward needed to touch himself, and upon doing so, a familiar message appeared, but it looked different.
[Select Default Action for Item Type: My Corpse]
[Convert to Mana]
[Store in Stasis]
[Research]
'Process of elimination time! No storing. I'm just not gonna deal with that. Research?'
[Dungeon research parameters not set.]
[Complete via time or resources?]
'Okay, no. I'm not doing the whole 'get 100 flowers to make a flower' thing. That's what it's asking like one of those stupid fetch quests everyone hates, I know it is. Convert to mana.'
What used to be Jack's corpse started becoming transparent, then once it was totally invisible, the clothes it was wearing collapsed, nothing holding it in position anymore.
'Hey game interface! Why was that named but the other stuff wasn't?'
No reply came.
That was when the rush hit.
-----------------------------
Snyl and Mael stopped running, though both were still panting. "I didn't expect to find something like that", Snyl said. "Maybe a wog or thoat."
Mael nodded. "A rock monster? I don't even know what that thing was. Definitely report it."
"Definitely", the other man agreed.
-----------------------------
The rush felt like the jolt to awake-itude you get when you wake up at night, not actually awake, just to urinate then go back to bed. But then right before you get back into bed, your last footstep is on a Lego. But without the pain.
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The rush felt like when you're really not paying attention and can't see very well, so you reach for the eye drops, and discover too late that you grabbed the hot sauce instead. But without the burning.
[Mana Overload. Please spend mana.]
'Ho! That's a spicy meatball!', Jack thought to himself, though that level of rush was not letting him think clearly. 'Spend it on what? Oh! Research!' He reached forward from where he was standing next to where his corpse had lain, and touched the now empty pants that his transparent self still wore.
[Select Default Action for Item Type]
[Convert to Mana]
[Store in Stasis]
[Research]
'Research!'
[Dungeon research parameters not set.]
[Complete via time or resources?]
'Oh right yeah. Time, I guess.'
[Research Room not designated.]
[Select a room for Research options.]
'Get another room with mana. I don't know how. Just do it though.'
[Select direction for the new room.]
'Oh wait, hot damn that worked?' Jack finally, while being outside, looked up to eye level. There were other ruined buildings around, though he didn't see any people or animals or signs that anyone had been nearby for a long time, except for those tiny people earlier. The building across the street did look somewhat interesting, though, and as soon as he made the decision, he could feel the difference.
It felt like when you go lay down due to eating or drinking too much too quickly, then you belch so hard that you don't feel bloated anymore. With all the relief.
To investigate the new area he had just bought, which had to be more interesting than what he had already looked at for longer than he wanted to, he walked over to it, looking down again. Amidst the grasses, he saw something that didn't look like grass. Though, with the dim light, which he didn't see a moon as the source for nor anything else, he couldn't tell what it was. When he touched it...
[Select Default Action for Item Type]
[Convert to Mana]
[Store in Stasis]
[Research]
'Store in stasis. You know what, just call it 'store' from now on', he said to the telepathic texts, if that's what they were. 'You know what? I know what I need when I'm this bored.'
Instead of walking to the other building and through its closed door, Jack walked to his crime scene. Well, what was thought of as one, though not by him. He touched one thing after another, selecting [Store] for each thing he found. His pants, shoes, and tee shirt that said, "If you met my family, you'd understand" on it, and cheap wristwatch all disappeared in the same way other 'stored' items did, each appearing in the abandoned Church.
But, then he went into the Church and tried to rummage through his pockets, finding himself able to reach through them but not into them. Luckily, he was able to get to what he wanted.
[Select Default Action for Item Type]
[Convert to Mana]
[Store]
[Research]
'Store', he said. As he did so, the cell phone quickly disappeared from inside his pocket and appeared on the floor against a wall nearby. Luckily, he was able to scroll through some apps to find his playlist, and click 'play'.
His lack of headphones was useful at this point. Inside the other building, it quickly became apparent that it used to be a grocery store of some kind, but they had a few other things on shelves that a grocery store wouldn't have. 'An actual general store?', he thought to himself. 'Kinda says when this is. Shit, that means these people don't have tech. Oh man am I the first tech guy? Nice! I'm definitely the protagonist. I knew I would be! Thanks, truck!'