When Howard failed to object, the genie shook his head before continuing.
“Either way, wish granted I guess.”
The genie raised his hands and began to chant in a strange language with a stilted and abrupt rhythm. Howard watched with wide eyes as a blue mist began to flow out of the lamp and clung to the ground in great roiling waves of fog. James edged away from the encroaching fog beeping with suspicion. There seemed to be a high pitched whine, as if something were charging up. Suddenly the whining and chanting stopped as the genie began laughing.
“I really gots ya didn't I. It don’t take all of that,” said the genie before snapping his fingers.
The snap seemed to echo around the chamber, lingering in the air longer than it should have naturally. By this point, James had become more or less disinterested and had begun to make a castle out of the coins nearby. After a good minute or so, Howard began to think nothing was going to happen after all.
Before he got a chance to say anything, Howard suddenly felt nauseous as the world began to spin around him. He grew incredibly hot and all the blood seemed to rush to his head all at once. He looked over to see if James was agitated in any way, as the little car seemed to have a good handle on things. It was a bit hard to tell due to his spinning vision but it seemed like James was… Laughing at him? He aimed a kick at the little car’s coin castle in retribution. Dizzy and unbalanced he missed his kick and ended up falling onto his back directly onto James' work-in-progress coin castle, much to the little car's displeasure.
“What did you do to me genie! And you…. you silly fish, I'm dying and all you can do is laugh!” Howard exclaimed.
“Relax kid, yous not dying, I'm just… adjusting you a bit so yous can get what's goin’ on. It was your wish after all. It's not my friggin’ fault if yous a silly bastard.”
“ I… I think I'm just gonna lay here for a bit. I'd appreciate it if you all would stop the spinning. That would be great.”
“Sorry, but I can't do that for yas. Once you wish a wish it's gotta be completed or else.”
Howard tried to throw up but found that he had nothing in his stomach. He had just been born and hadn't really had an opportunity to eat.
“Or else what?” Howard finally managed to choke out between dry heaves.
“Or else friggin’ bad news that's what. If you thought the Sox was bad now, just wait. An uncompleted wish makes all sorts of bad and wild magic happen.”
“What you need to do now is lay down and try not to die. You probably won't die, by the way. I mean one way or the other, me and the car are gonna have a good time watching. I mean, yous gotta admit this is pretty funny.”
Howard punctuated the genie's sentence by dry heaving again. He tried to think of some sort of comeback to that, but the spinning world around him was too distracting.
“You know I don't think I do find this funny. Now if you'll excuse me I think… No, I know I am going to pass out.” Howard managed after another bout of dry heaving.
Good to his word, Howard did pass out.
Some time later Howard awoke to a splitting headache and a general feeling of shittiness. Not too dissimilar to some hangovers he had suffered through.
Despite his general hungover state, he didn't feel any different than usual. That was until he noticed what appeared to be a notification of some kind, like he had just received a mental ping or a mental text. With a bit of mental strain, Howard attempted to access the text. The experience was fairly weird. It felt a lot like trying to remember a fuzzy memory from early childhood. It was significantly harder due to his hangover-like condition. Howard felt the need for coffee and an Advil, whatever an Advil was. Howard's face scrunched with mental strain as he struggled to access the mental text, before Donny’s voice broke through his concentration.
“Ay bro, you good? Yous look like you're about to friggin’ shit your pants. I would really appreciate it if yous wouldn't do that. This is my treasure and I'd like to not have to clean it. Listen, I'll make yous a bathroom gimme a sec.”
This statement, followed by the sudden materialization of an old fashioned outhouse brought gales of beep laughs from James.
“I'm not about to shit myself Donny. And I'll thank you to shut up James, when you were a regular fish you used to eat your own shit all the time so har har.”
The reveal of Jame’s lifestyle pre-revival as a car driving fish brought his beeps to a sudden stop. Rumbling his engine angrily James flicked his head lights in annoyance before driving into the gold pile to hide.
“I'm trying to use my wish. I've got some sorta mental thing I'm trying to access. Do you know anything about this Donny?” Howard asked.
“I mean not really, it’s your wish bud. If it's anything like magic, yous just gotta let it flow. If yous try too hard, yous just gonna give yourself a headache.”
“What do you mean let it flow? That's not helpful at all… wait, wait, nevermind I got it.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Congratulations you have accessed the system
(Whether or not the system exists or is entirely in your head you'll never know)
Access stat sheet?
Yes No
Howard Mentally struggled to select yes for a moment before his vision blurred and what looked like a stat sheet from a video game popped up.
Name: Howard
Race : Idiot
Class : Idiot
Level: 0
Xp: 30
The layout was way too familiar to be a coincidence. It looked like some cosmic force ripped off every video game RPG or TTRPG that he had ever played to come up with this sorry excuse of a character sheet. Besides for the obvious tampering by Cosmic Sans, it was fairly straightforward. Thinking of Cosmic Sans, Howard decided that his best course of action with said entity was direct communication.
Howard took a deep breath before yelling at the sky.
“You're not funny you know!”
Yes I am. Besides, is that any way to treat an unknowable and probably all powerful entity that's maybe on your side?
“I dont care whose side you're on, just stop messing with my stats. I already have no idea what's going on. Besides I used a whole wish on this, messing with it isn’t cool.”
Spoil sport
Meanwhile the genie and James were looking at Howard with concern as he yelled at the sky in “conversation” with something about “stats,” whatever they were.
“Is he always like this?” questioned the genie to the equally confused James. James beeped in confirmation, flicking his headlights in what seemed like a shake of the head.
“Yous know, that kids messed up.”
James beeped in agreement.
“Will you guys shut up, I'm trying to read.” Howard said grumpily, addressing his companions before mentally moving on to the next section of the stat sheet.
Vibe : 5
Build: 3
Cosmic Sans Points (CSP) : 4
Drip: 1
He shook his head as none of that made any sense to him. Usually stats were something sensible like strength, dexterity, intelligence, etc. But what does Vibe mean? Or Drip for that matter? Vibe was his highest stat and he had no idea what that meant or how that affected him. He mentally shrugged before moving on to the next section. He figured that either he would eventually figure it out, or in the worst case scenario he would die and it wouldn't matter.
Features
Adrenaline - You know what this does. Your body just does that.
Convenience - There is no language barrier for you generally speaking.
Soul Bond- You are a pet owner.
Good hair- You have good hair consistently without much effort. (+1 vibe)
Skills
Exposition - Three times per arbitrary time unit or when necessary, have something explained
Silver tongued - (passive) People are more likely to listen to you, especially during commercial transactions. Increases based on Drip and Vibe
Other
Curse of greed - You touched a genie’s forbidden treasure, branding you and limiting your potential lmao get rekd
“What the hell is the curse of greed?” he mumbled to himself before a loud gong-like sound alerted him to some sort of pop up.
“You touched my gold didnt yous?” Donny said.
“Of course I touched the gold! It’s gold! Lying around unused! Hell, I even slept in the gold if you didn't notice!” Howard exclaimed in response.
“They always touch the gold,” Donny said mostly to himself before continuing.
“ It's your own fault yous got cursed, you know. Again, I'm not a leprechaun. I don'ts gotta give yous my gold just cause you followed a friggin’ rainbow or whatever…”
Another loud gong-like sound echoed through Howards head, cutting off whatever Donny was going to say next.
– BONG —
- Would you like to use Exposition?
“Uhhh, yes?”
Curse of Greed - (New skill) Due to the manner in which you interacted with the cursed treasure, you may now no longer throw anything besides money. Money is now thrown at an increased velocity.
—- Bong —--
Another echoing boong made Howard cringe as he received another notification.
“God damn it! Is it always going to be this loud?” he exclaimed to the confusion of James and the genie.
Class Requirements met
New Class unlocked +30 xp
Would you like to change class from Idiot to New class Adventure Capitalist?
Yes No
Howard thought about it briefly before mentally straining to select the new class. He figured that anything should be better than idiot. Having some fairly extensive gaming experience, both video and tabletop, brought Howard confidence with his choice.
—-Bong —--
New Class Achieved + 5 xp
What the hell? What's with the lack of xp he thought to himself. All of his previous gaming experience told him that getting a new class was a pretty big deal. If unlocking a class gave him 30 xp then getting said class should be 30 xp too. He mentally brought up his character sheet again.
Race : Idiot
Class : Adventure Capitalist
Level: 0
Xp: 65
He mentally scrolled down to his features specifically looking at Exposition.
Exposition - Three times an arbitrary time unit or when necessary have something explained ( 2 / 3)
Yup, he still had charges, shouldn't be that big of a deal to use one of the two remaining . He mentally tried to nudge it. When nothing happened, he strained mentally. He tried everything from crossing and uncrossing his eyes to blinking SOS in morse code. He even tried squatting while he strained mentally in case moving was somehow part of activation; he wouldn't put it past Cosmic Sans.
“Looks like he's bout the shit himself,” Donny whispered to James atop his coinage citadel unbeknownst to Howard. Much to the little car's delight, as made clear by his laugh of agreement.
When Howard finally gave up on mentally trying to use Exposition, he turned to vocalizing his desire.
“Hello system, I wanna use Exposition on xp.” Howard said to no response from the echoing treasure chamber.
“ Uhh, kid what system are yous talkin’ about?” asked Donny.
“Uh, the one that Cosmic Sans fused to my wish? Do you not have a system? I thought this was like, uhh, a video game or like DND?”
“ Yous think this is a video game? Like Mario? Lemme tell yous, if this was a video game do you think I'd be granting yous wishes? Hell no! I’d be like an evil king or something wicked cool like that. That or be throwing barrels at you, or like ghosts or something. I don't know, I haven't really paid attention to video games since the 80's. They can't have changed that much.”
“Uhhhh…”
“Anyway, why would yous wanna play video games anyways, go play sports or watch a movie or something.”
“So just to double check you don't have, like, a character sheet with a race and class and what not?”
“No?”
“What about you James, do you?” Howard said, looking up at James atop his ridiculously large coin castle. Howard received an answer to the negative by way of a handful of confused beeps.
“Hmm. Since I can't get an explanation and neither of you guys know, I guess I may as well give up for now.”
“That’s the spirit kid, quit as soon as you get stumped,” Donny said encouragingly.
“Hey, since yous given up on that thing yous was talking about, how bout I grab us some classic Fenway franks and I’ll put on the Sox game. It's not often that I can take a corporeal form, and I've been craving a classic ballpark dog. I noticed yous didn't have any food on yas, so may as well eat before you choose a second wish,” Donny said before quietly mumbling about making better wishes on a full stomach.