The World Which Is

Chapter 06

I cry out as pain flash at the same time at my health bar, with some of my hit points vanishing.

Debuff: Broken bone, left forearm

You have broken a bone.

All actions where this arm is required suffer a 75% reduction in success chances.

Maximum Hit points are reduced by 10% until the bone is healed.

I channel the pain as I turned on my back. "What the fuck?" I yell at Rich, who's a dark form against the sunlight.

"Well?" he asked.

"Well, fucking, what?" The pain lessens enough I wince at my use of a swear word. There's a strict policy of no swearing in my household. And I've just done it twice. I've sworn before, but it was for the sake of swearing; I didn't mean it then. I fucking mean it now.

If my dad was here, he'd smack me upside the head.

No. If my dad was here, he'd do a hell of a lot worse than smack me at this point.

"You were wondering what was done there, weren't you?"

"And you thought shoving me down here and breaking my arm would a funny way to get me to find out?"

"It kind of was," he replies with a chuckle. A bunch of something lands next to me and bounces on the green moss that covers the ground. Must be why I only have a broken arm and lost what... a third of my hit points? A fifteen meter fall has to hurt more than this.

"I have a broken arm, asshole!" I wince as I grab one of the packaged bars. "Food healing isn't going to do shit for that!" It's rough paper

"Maybe you should look at it, instead of bitching."

I roll my eyes and look at the bar in my hand.

Carlysle's Advanced Healing Bar

Perception Check: failed

"Who's Carlysle?

"No idea. But you can see it does more than restore hit points."

"I failed my perception check."

"You're going to want to work on that then."

"It's maxed out! You know how it works when you don't have a class."

He says something I don't make out as I rip the end of the wrapper with my teeth. Then I bite into the bar and almost spit it out. "This is vile." It's only the promise of healing that makes me continue to chew, and then swallow.

"Medicine isn't supposed to taste good."

"Says who?" I'm not done eating it that my heath is already crawling up. I've never eaten something that did that before. Mister's Roger's bars all need to be completely eaten before they'll start working.

It's still a struggle to finish it. Then the pain lessens as the debuff vanishes. My hand tingles as sensation returns, then I can move it and my fingers without problems.

"How much can this thing heal?" I ask in awe.

"More than some classless kid like you's going to have." The mocking drips from his tone.

"Then maybe would shouldn't have pushed me?" I ball the wrapper and put it in my pants pocket, filling that inventory spot. The three other bars go in my inventory, with my knife. Let Rich try to get them back. "Tell me you have rope, or another way for me to get out of here."

"I have rope."

"Then throw it to me and get ready to haul me up."

A coil of rope lands next to me.