Chapter 186 - After the Firestorm (part 7)

After another confirmation chime, words began to flow into each of the name and description boxes for the items.

The potion, according to the information box, was not actually magical, but rather a roughly made alchemical mixture combining various herbs, gnoll blood, powdered troll bone, and the caps of particular kinds of mushrooms known for their painkilling and mood-altering effects. The total effect, according to the readout, was that drinking this particular concoction would temporarily render him insensitive to pain, give him increased natural healing and energy, and increased aggression and reduced inhibitions. The time it would actually last for him was stated as "unknown", and below the effects, a giant block of text written in bright red warned him of possible side-effects including nausea, vomiting, heart palpitations, headache, fatigue, delusions, and hallucinations once the positive effects began to wear off.

So, it was basically something like alchemical methamphetamine. It reminded him a lot of the stories he used to read about the mushrooms Viking berserkers would eat that would send them into a rage during battle. He had no idea if that was actually true or not, but this was apparently a real-life equivalent of something very similar. He was hesitant to use it because he was sure there were other drawbacks or side-effects the Terminal wasn't telling him about. But, in a last ditch scenario with no other options, he figured having it was better than not having it. Who knows? Maybe the mysterious alche-meth would save his life at some point.

The dagger was, as he'd expected, not magical, though it was identified as a masterwork-grade weapon. It was worth a few hundred gold, but he decided against selling it. He liked how it looked, and playing games for as long as he had told him having a backup weapon for worst case scenarios was always a good idea.

After a minute or two of browsing, he opted to keep the remaining 150 gold in the Terminal for later. No sense spending what he had on something that wouldn't matter in the immediate future.

Once he finally finished, he closed the Terminal and gave the little golden whistle another blow. With another gut-renching fold of his body and another cork pop, he was back in the far corner of the camp. From his vantage point, he saw that the assembled mass of adventurers had already cleaned up, regathered their equipment, and were already exiting the camp towards the base of the mountain. So either he'd been in there longer than he'd thought, or time worked differently at the Repository than it did in the real world. He made a mental note to experiment with the difference and figure out what the exact exchange rate was sometime in the future.

He walked in the direction of where he and Rose had been sitting previously, only to spot her sitting in the same place as before, right next to both of their packs. As he approached, she turned her attention his direction. When she saw him, her eyes squinted, then widened in shock as he got closer.

"Hey Rose." He said, smilling as he walked up.

She looked at him dumbstruck for a long moment, her mouth hanging open, until she finally blinked herself back to her senses and cleared her throat.

"Jack, I, uh.... wow. You, uh, look..... different?" She said, seeming unsure of how exactly to react.

Jack scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"Is it too much?" He asked.

Rose quickly shook her head.

"Oh no no, not at all! You look... You look... very..." She stammered, trailing off as her face flushed intensely.

Jack stepped forward, and place his hand on her cheek. Her wide eyes darted from his hand to his smile and back.

"Thank you, Rose." He said, before leaning in and pressing his lips to hers.