Chương 22: Was not a disappointment for Lakshmi

No point in waiting around for my level up. I clicked the thing and the world froze and my vision fell away, until there were only my three card options in my mind's eye. The first card read, 'Fancy Leather Works and Fine Jacketry,' on a quilted background. The little frescos in the quilt in the background showed my adventures from my last life. The kids' births, the wars, my wedding day, the kids' weddings, and so on and so forth.

The second card read 'American Citizen Legal Gunstore' and had a pair of rifles crossing one another on a red, white, and blue 'american' background. The third said 'Wild Card' and had a question mark being wielded like a club by a jester on a blue and pink plaid background. Ohhhh man… I really want my chief's jacket back. On the other hand, an actual gunstore would be amazing for when I finally leave town. Not tempted by the wildcard. Time was frozen, so I could think for a second without the chaos of… everyone.

How was it that I gained experience? I leveled up the first time before I'd killed a thing, so I didn't think I gained levels by killing. And if it was just burning through enough money that got me experience then surely I would have leveled when I bought all the solar panels and stuff and blew past my limit. I tripped over the line into level 2 when Theodore realized he was Superman. It was a data point. It gave me ideas, but all were wild speculation. Was it doing nice things?

Or helping someone else with their own growth? Did I get some for helping Damon level up? Was the flea treatment for Bill good enough to earn me exp? Hmmmmm… I sat there, from my perspective, for a little while, thinking. Frozen still, but not uncomfortable, just… thinking. If just living my life as I do had netted me two level ups, I'd get more if I simply carried on being me, right? The gunstore, and the wildcard were both there before, they'll be there again.

I'll level up again before I leave town, somehow, probably. And it's not like I can carry around a gun in town… I selected the 'Fancy Leather Works and Fine Jacketry' card and was not spared the embarrassing golden light glowed all around me, and a gentle wind blew up from below me.

"I leveled up." I said, as though it were not obvious. They fucking applauded and cheered. I did my best to smile and not look like I was dying inside.

"And yes, Theodore, you are Superman, sorta. Not Nietzsche's version, THAT version."

"Nuts to that," he said, "obviously I'm Superman. What'd you get for your level up?"

"I got access to a fancy leather jacket store." No need to mention that I passed on the gunstore.

"Looks like your level ups don't come with a full heal either." Steven noted my peg leg had stubbornly continued to be a peg.

"Oh that's right." Lakshmi withdrew the surprisingly large purple potion.

"The regeneration potion I bought from Frank's party's support."

"What the heck?" I was expecting it to be small, like the elixirs, not a damn milk jug.

"That's huge? I need to drink like a gallon of purple?"

"You have to replace your bones and muscles with something, you can't just make a new leg from nothing." Lakshmi said, as though we weren't surrounded by magical nonsense from the moment we came into this world.

"It's full of all the needed vitamins and minerals you need to grow fresh, strong bones. I've been assured."

"BONES!?" One of the fairies pulled his head out of the small glass he was drinking from. It was chest high on them. Like buffalo at a watering hole, the three fairies had descended on that short beer glass Theodore had poured them, and were all putting in the effort to drink it dry.

"I know, you're all little bone boys." Lakshmi said.

"But you don't!" Bone Cruncher said, drunkenly, losing a bit of his 'macho strain' to his voice and slipping into a more normal, albeit slightly slurred speech pattern. Clearly, giving them the equivalent to a jacuzzi full of beer was… well, a decision we hadn't really thought about before we did it.

"We're bone fairies, but we're WAY too manly to be welcomed into homes like our high and mighty sister."

"Who is your sister?" Theodore asked. He'd set down his superman comic to take notes on my level up, but we'd moved on in the conversation, thankfully, and now he was taking notes on bone fairies.

"The Tooth Fairy!" Bone Crusher shout-cried.

"Everyone gives her teeth all the time… for free!. She's become so powerful in the fae realm, and full-on adult people-sized now. No one ever offers us their old, used, non-teeth bones, over which we have dominion, so we've been stuck tiny and weak, forever!" Bone Cracker pulled his head out of the glass and opened his mouth, put a finger up like he was going to say something… and fell over onto his back. Lakshmi reached over and rolled him onto his side and gave him a gentle pat.

"We only finally got another job as 'Victory Fairies' recently." Bone Crusher was talkative when drunk.

"That golden dude said we'd end up getting bones doing this job."

"Did he now?" I asked.

"What else did he say about your employment contract with me?"

"That it would last until you left the second world! I think it scammed us though, because we can only accept bones from the Bone Owners. The Bowner." Damon snickered, and Steven snorted. The three adults in the room appreciated the silliness and whimsy of these three small idiots, quieter.

"Hmmm…" Something occurred to me.

"Lakshmi, when you finished off that boss… did you recover the missing part of my leg?" You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Yes, of course. I was going to try to reattach it… but that thing's stomach acid had stripped it down to just bones." She started laughing as soon as she said it.

"I see you had the same thought as me. Did you happen to keep it?"

"Oh Johnny, that's so morbid. We're eating breakfast here. Yes." She pulled the bones from her frog and manifested my old lower leg and foot bones on the table.

"I have your boot too, but we can give you that back when you grow your new foot." The two conscious bone fairies stared in awe. Damon's hp dropped to 5/6.

"Wait wait wait… I'm a titty-brunk-dit night row. Are you offering us your old, used, non-teeth bones, Johnny?" Bone Cruncher looked black out drunk, and on the verge of crying tears of highly intoxicated joy. The least drunk of the three, Bone Crusher, asked, "And we don't even gotta sneak in and… and steal them from under your pillow? Or pay?"

"I'm not really using them for anything, so sure, all yours. I offer you my old, used bones." I said, "But I am kind of curious what you're planning to do with them?" Damon's hp dropped to 4/6.

"BONES!!!" Crusher shouted and with a pulse of his own magic, he sobered himself up instantly, and then his brothers too, in a pair of flashes as he pointed and fired his finger guns at them.

"WILLINGLY GIVEN BONES!!! Arise brothers! Our time of empowerment is finally at hand! OHHH YEAAAHHH!!!" The other two scrambled over to my bones. Going from drunk, to brutally hungover, to feeling fine again all in about five seconds. Bone Crusher turned toward me, and fully returned to macho-man mode, "Your hour's been up for a few minutes, BROTHER! We were just enjoying the beer, but now that we have BONES of our own, we have work to do. Thank you. Come on BONE BROTHERS! TO POWER!!!"

There was a flash of pink light, and a puff of pink smoke, and they were gone.

"Well…" Theodore said, "That was…" I don't think he knew what to call it. I didn't either. We all just sat there with our mouths opened for a moment in shock.

"Fascinating?" Steven said.

"Yeah, I think I'll use that word when I write the article about it." Theodore chuckled, "So Johnny, you gonna buy yourself a new leather jacket or what?"

"They never told me what they're gonna do with my bones. Ehh, I'll ask them tomorrow. As for the jacket, yeah… I'll decide which one to get soon." Things had been too distracting to focus my mind's eye on the new website and look at my options and find my jacket. Speaking of distractions.

"Push that jug o' goo over here, might as well get this started, yeah?"

"Oh yes, I am most fascinated to watch this process." She pushed the putrid looking purple potion to me. I wasn't sure if I was going to wish I hadn't eaten breakfast, or be glad I had. I expected it to taste… different than it did. I was prepared for a rotten crotch flavored beverage, or sulfur fart flavored, or even unidentifiable horror, or maybe a sensation like licking a battery all the way down my throat when I drank it. Nope.

Blackberry banana smoothie, with a hint of cilantro, which was not a great flavor to mix with those other two, but it was only a hint, so flavorwise it was 5/10. Texturewise it was like a smoothie with a healthy helping of ice cream, by which I mean unhealthy. So we're clear, it was like dessert, except it was room temperature, and when the creamy mouthfeel of an ice cream based beverage/meal replacement left, there was only the chalky feeling on my tongue that betrayed I'd been tricked into drinking medicine.

Like a dog finding a pill in his peanut butter, I stuck out my tongue several times trying to get the final flavor off my tongue.

"She told me to have you drink as much as you can stomach as fast as you can, and that the first effects would start in about thirty minutes. She said for a foot and lower leg it'd be a few hours to finish. We're gonna wanna pull out that peg. Theodore, are you ready to assist in this removal surgery?"

"Way more ready than I was to help you put it in after you beat that boss, that's for damn sure." Theodore set down his notepad and pencil and looked at me and said, "Steven and Damon are going to clear the table of the dishes, and then if you'd be so kind as to place your peg leg on the table, we'll get that wood outta there so you can grow a new foot." Steven cleared the table at blur speed, and Damon picked up his own plate and took it to the kitchen where Steven had left everything else in a neat pile.

I noticed he was down to 3/6 hp. And I, threw my peg having leg on the table. And he dropped to 1/6.

"I don't think I want to watch." Steven said, though, I'm pretty sure he did want to watch.

"Hey, Damon, you got some spiderman comics at yours, right? He was always my favorite." He mouthed 'Batman' behind Damon's back. Damon definitely did not want to watch, he was looking more and more ill as we discussed bones and surgery and all that sort of thing, to the point he was losing hp over it, but he wasn't sure how to excuse himself.

"Oh I do! Grandpa got them for me." Those two were out the door so fast I could swear Damon had superspeed too, the last thing I saw was his hp back to 6/6.

"Remind me to give Steven a raise later." I said.

"Welp, we might as well get-" Before I could finish the sentence, Theodore had removed the peg from my stump.

"Hot fucking Christmas! Christ on a cracker! Holy fucking Guacamole!" And so on. I swore a little more, nothing I'm proud to have said aloud, but nothing worse than a bunch of stuff that was sincerely sacrilegious to all of Christendom. Lakshmi hit me with some healing magic to stop the sudden bleeding and I realized how slapdash that surgery they'd done before had been. Magic really is something. When it stopped hurting like he'd just ripped my fucking peg off, I forgave Theodore for his sudden surgery technique.

Apparently he and Lakshmi had discussed it beforehand, with Steven too, but not Damon. I got back to work chugging as much of my slightly weird tasting, entirely too big smoothie as I could stomach and after a half an hour, it started to work… At first it was a tickle, like someone was wiping a feather across the leg and foot that wasn't there. I actually laughed in the face of what I was about to experience, but only because I was a fool that did not know to find something to bite down on.

After the tickle it moved to a tingle, like I'd sat on my foot too long and it was asleep, and that was the last part that felt anything that could even be remotely called pleasant. From the tingle it moved to insect bites, and then to fire, and then to flaming insect bites, until it felt like my leg was trying to give birth to itself. I assume, I don't really know. I've never given birth. Maybe I should have said it was like passing a kidney stone, but this was worse than that.

I'd take a broken rib or a root canal over regrowing a foot in a few hours any day. Once it was really going, and hurting fucking terribly… I got surprisingly hungry again. So hungry it was no problem whatsoever to chug down the rest of that purple shit. And if you're wondering, yes, I asked Lakshmi for some kind of pain killers. Drugs or magic, I didn't care which.

"No can do, Johnny." She frowned, "I'm afraid all I can do at this point is hold your hand and promise you it'll be alright. Frank's support was very explicit: no opiates, and no magical pain killing. Apparently the pain is part of the process."

"AAAAHHHHHHHHH." I argued my point intelligently, calmly, and rationally. But she didn't yield and give me the drugs. Instead she gently mocked me.

"You didn't think regrowing bones was going to feel good did you?" Probably for the best.