Compared to the sweaty, beefy Hispanic nightmare Saturday had been, Sunday was almost a disappointment.
Leslie woke up.
Had an existential crisis.
Got over it.
Burned the MP he had to get Esuna and Protect up to level four and three respectively.
Made breakfast.
(Mom’s gone.
Church?
Should probably find out.) And then picked up the rest of the spells he could afford from the game Shop.
Teleport had been both an offensive and utility spell in the original game, though it had a major drawback.
When used by the player in the game outside of battle, it teleported the party outside the current dungeon.
And left them initially on the verge of death.
After leveling up it did progressively less damage to the party until it hit level sixteen and stopped harming them at all.
He needed to experiment with that.
If all it did was get him out of danger, it’d be worth every scrap of effort he put into it.
If it could do more than that?
It would be worth the thousand GP it cost a thousand times over.
Blink was a spell that increased evasion regardless of his agility.
Three hundred gp.
Shell mitigated magic damage.
Another three hundred gp.
The next spell had been the source of his existential crisis earlier in the morning.
Life.
It, well, it brought party members back to life.
Barely, at level one, but still.
It was changed a little bit to fit the current game system, restoring one point of VP per level alongside a pittance of HP…
And in the flavor text for the spell it did mention that it could be cast on the recently deceased.
Death may have been a revolving door in this part of the multiverse, but it still wasn’t supposed to be easy.
If it ever got out what he was capable of, he doubted he’d ever be safe again.
And the final spell he purchased was Toad.
With Circe hanging around in this reality and making animal-people, it might not have been an optimal choice.
On the other hand, Leslie just didn’t feel comfortable grabbing offensive spells that could burn, freeze or electrocute someone to death.
He’d suffered all three to varying degrees in his former life.
While he wouldn’t say murder was off the table, he drew the line at torture.
So that was Three-thousand and six-hundred GP he was short.
Unfortunately, that was the affordable half of the spell list from the game of Shadow Over Palakkia.
The spell to turn flesh to stone was five-thousand GP.
A spell to multiply his speed was ten-thousand.
So too was the spell to multiply his strength and a curse to halve the stats of someone else.
The spell that would drain the MP of others to give to him cost twenty-thousand, and one that called down Holy light to smite ghosts, ghouls, zombies and all other manner of evil was the same.
Forty-thousand for the next spell, one that was pure offense.
And then the last one.
It was listed at sixty-five-thousand, five-hundred and sixty-five GP.
And it was important because it caused True damage.
It was also a gimmicky piece of crap that was plain-old broken on its initial release, causing five hundred damage -at best- when it was fully leveled and drawing power from a completed list of fully leveled spells.
Hilariously enough, he could actually purchase the bugged version for fifty GP.
Moving on from his growing list of books he needed to read, he also had three perk points to spend.
That had actually left Leslie stumped for a good bit.
The list was legitimately massive, easily holding a few hundred different perks, modifiers and feats.
Oh, what he could actually get was significantly less, being that the list was populated by trees and progression tables, but he still had to take everything into account.
He’d finally settled on getting the first part of the Bright and Shining Soul pair.
–Bright Soul– “Power thrums from deep within your soul.
Magic is a part of you, and it’s a part you’ll cherish, ever and always.” “MP regen +50%” He’d also gotten the first part of the Metamagic series of perks.
Everything in it was situationally useful, some more than others, but he was really after the final perk.
Entanglement.
A level twenty-five perk that would let him cast a spell or use a magical ability on the entirety of an object even if he only had a small, separated part.
But that was for later.
Right now he’d have to enjoy having Metamagic: Extend, letting him either double the area of effect of applicable spells, or doubling their duration.
He’d save his final perk point for later.
Nothing else really stood out except for Magically Apprenticed, but that was a level ten perk, and he was a level not-ten.
By the end of Sunday, Leslie had successfully finished reading the book on alchemy basics and the spelltomes for Life and Teleport.
Everything else was still sitting in his inventory, unread and waiting.
Esuna had reached level five, and was starting to critically slow down due to the minute but steadily increasing cost, and both life and teleport were sitting at an unhealthy level of four and three respectively.
Teleport, unfortunately, left him drained and exhausted but it did make for good practice with either of his two healing spells.
Thankfully, or perhaps thanklessly, Monday was more…
Interesting.
Leslie had gotten up at four in the morning, got himself ready and did what he could to not be visibly disgusted at the thought of going back to middleschool.
Even if only for a week before a very long summer break.
And then high school.
That was…
Well, he wasn’t quite sure, but he had months to figure something out.
“Leslie?
Sweety?
Are you ready?” His- Leslie’s mom yelled from down the hallway.
He stopped closing the notifications that had piled up from a project while he was asleep.
Was he ready?
Backpack, notebooks, pens and was he dressed?
He looked down, yes he was dressed.
(A tiny ritual, just a small thing.
Asking his wife if he had both of his workboots on.
Never again) “I didn’t even have to get you up today!
You must be so excited for summer break!” The overweight office worker handed him a bottle of pills and- Leslie stopped listening to read the label.
Adderall.
Forty pills.
He held it up to a nearby light.
Half of them were missing.
“Don’t forget, you need to take two of those with your lunch today and two after school.” The instructions also mentioned breakfast and dinner, but she seemed to have forgotten that.
Leslie self-medicating with weed was making a lot more sense now.
What was he even supposed to do with these?
‘Sell them to Mrs.Kwan at lunch.’ Whispered Leslie’s echo from the back of his mind.
He puts it out of his mind.
He puts a lot of things out of his mind.
Like how uncomfortable it is to ride a city school bus again.
Or that girl from the pedophile incident staring at him.
He’d already forgotten her name.
The first morning class had been Math.
Half of it he’d long forgotten.
The other half he could do mentally.
The second class was Gym.
Dodgeball with the old, heavy rubber balls.
Cure reached level two then.
And the scrawny black-haired kid who’d beaned him was seriously good.
At lunch he took a detour to the art classroom.
He walked out with an extra hundred dollars and a pill bottle full of candy.
Both of which disappeared into his inventory as soon as he put them in his pockets.
He didn’t really pay attention to what was on his lunch tray, mechanically eating instead of looking at the food.
He did notice a pair of security cameras, but he didn’t think much on them.
Was this seriously the life he’d been inserted into?
A kid who was buying and selling drugs at school?
Whose mom had probably gotten him diagnosed with attention deficit disorder so she could get free amphetamines?
He needed to find a way to deal with this.
He had enough information to know that- “You rat bastard!” Leslie started to turn around in his seat when his vision was filled with metal tray.
–Critical Hit!– –Headshot!– — -50 HP!– — -2 VP!– He fell to the ground, dazed and foggy.
He tried to get his hands under him but a kick to the side knocked him back down.
— -10 HP!– “You think it’s funny?!
Huh?!
They’re sendin’ my uncle to jail ‘cuz of you!” Leslie found it a bit difficult to feel bad about whoever was yelling at him, seeing as they continued kicking him in the ribs.
— -10 HP!– — -10 HP!– — -10 HP!– Leslie tried to roll away, but just ended up hitting the table he’d been sitting at.
— -10 HP!– The kicking stopped, and Leslie finally managed to get a good look at who’d been trying to beat the stuffing out of him.
The gym teacher?
No, no, Mr.Kemp was holding someone.
That made more sense.
Tommy!
That was it!
He’d been one of Leslie’s friends, at the stoners house.
While he was shouting and teachers were all storming in, Leslie pulled out his phone.
“Gotham City Police Department, how may I direct your call?” “Hi.
It’s Leslie again…”