18. Can I Become One with the Floor?

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18

The screaming ended just as abruptly as it had begun and Dax was left with nothing other than a growing feeling of embarrassment. He stared at the floor, taking in every imperfection in the wood.

There was a hole where someone had hammered a nail in the wrong place and then pulled it out and a long semi-circular scratch where the door scraped against the wood. Someone had hung it too low and now it was damaging the floor.

Dax hoped that the person that had just tried to help him, didn't take him screaming personally. It really hadn't been, he'd just freaked out.

Slowly Dax laid himself back down on the floor and after resting in that position for a while the world began to stop feeling like it was rising and falling beneath him once more.

His momentary peace was shattered by the System's familiar voice.

"Return to Heavenly City complete. + 100 points." It remarked brightly, unfazed by the scene it had just witnessed and the inappropriate tone of its own voice. A fancy rainbow graphic, showing + 100 points in a huge and rather aesthetic font scrolled in front of Dax's eyes.

He closed them and hoped, not for the first time, that the System would just go away and leave him alone for a bit. Would asking for some time to actually take in what was happening be too much to ask for?

It seemed the answer to that question was yes.

"Update shop now open. Would you like to peruse the items available?" His A.I mentor asked bobbing in front of him and strobing through the colours of the rainbow to match the still active textbox.

Dax wanted to punch it, his eyes were still struggling to adjust to the light levels in the room, he didn't need to add a rainbow strobing light to his list of things overstimulating him.

"It couldn't hurt. It's not like I'm busy or anything." Dax said sarcastically. He was still laying on the floor but now flat on his back. Being here, felt safe. You can't fall if you're already lying down after all.

System being a sophisticated (but not that sophisticated) AI did not pick up on the sarcasm as heavily laden as it had been. It proceeded to read out the items available for purchase from its internal script.

The previous textbox closed and a new one was presented to him to peruse, featuring the System's internal point shop. Many of the items were greyed out, unlockable only at higher levels. System drew his attention to two of the lower level upgrades available to him.

"Available purchases: 1. Priority server access and reduced upgrade/download time. - 1000 Points."

Considering how long it had taken this glowing orb to connect to a server and download the patch needed to be able to answer any of his questions, this was definitely a priority purchase. What if it disconnected or needed to download something when he desperately needed it to respond to him?

If it had been able to connect quicker in the cave he might have been able to get out of there himself.

"Item 2. Deity Identification tags – ON. This add-on allows the user to identify people known to the previous host of the body easily and efficiently. It will also save you the embarrassment of flirting with a mortal enemy or ignoring the Emperor - 1000 Points."

This too seemed to be a very important upgrade. If he was going to be required to act in character it was important to know who people were and what kind of relationship Dythos had held with them earlier. Flailing around socially would highly likely end up in System pulling him off of the job. Like the AI had said previously, there were going to be important people that Dax was going to have to interact with. Maybe even family and friends of the former owner of the body.

It would be weird not to know who they were and would raise a lot of questions that he didn't want to have to answer.

A lot could probably be explained by the 'almost dying and the being newly awoken from the bottom of a lake' thing but not everything. He was probably going to have to blame a lot of that on amnesia. Amnesia was such a great excuse, the fewer opportunities he had to mess things up and make the System delete him from existence, the better.

"They're both very useful, definitely... but why are they so expensive?" Dax asked but there was no answer from the floating orb. He may have just earned 100 points but basic items, well they should be cheaper. 2000 points were going to take some time to accumulate and both items were something that he needed yesterday.

In the brightness of the room, it was impossible to mark the passing of time. There was no window to look out of and no natural light. From his position still on the floor, hours could have passed since the person in purple robes had fled the room. It was more likely that it had been a few minutes, he reasoned with himself.

Surely if you walked into a room and a sick person started screaming you would hurry a little when getting back up.

Hopefully they would be here soon and they would bring him food because he was starting to feel the same nausea he had in the cave. Dax hadn't been able to cook enough purple mushroom then to fill his stomach and he had no idea how long he had been unconscious.

For now, he was on his own with this fickle low grade system until someone came.




Mini Theatre

System: System is not responsible for in game purchases made by customers. All purchases are carried out at your own risk.

Author: You got to get a hold on the pricing or there's going to be some issues.

Dax: Yeah. 1000 points for each of these is a rip off! When will you stop monetising features that should come with the base game?

Author: Give me my swimming pool and functional cars god dammit! ლ(ಠ_ಠლ)

System: . . . ¯\(º_o)/

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