The Prizes (part 2)
After buying the Talent, his last action was to open up the Mundane Items purchase screen, and select a set of Light Armor that he could afford. After looking at several available options, he ended up settling on a set of hardened leather armor that covered his entire torso, shoulders, and arms for 35 gold, and with the remainder of his gold bought a couple sets of high-quality travel clothes, a pair of knee-high leather boots, a padded linen shirt to wear under the armor for extra protection, and a dark green wool cloak with a hood that sat draped around his shoulders and fastened around the neckguard of his new chest plate.
As he ordered each piece from the Terminal, it appeared on him, automatically fitted perfectly to his body type and shape, and when he was finished, and turned to Frumpkin and asked "How do I look?"
Frumpkin looked him up and down as he slurped down more of his margarita through a straw. He nodded his approval.
"You look good, kid. It's a good look for you." He said.
Jack wished he had a way to see what he looked like from outside himself. He looked around for a mirror or some other reflective surface to inspect his appearance in, but couldn't seem to find anything. Finally , he turned to the Terminal and asked "Hey Terminal, is there a way I can see what I look like in this armor?"
The screen went blank for a moment, almost as if the Terminal was thinking, before the screen shifted and distorted. It resolved itself a moment later into something akin to a TV screen, and displayed directly in the middle of it was him, staring back at himself from inside the Terminal window like it had a camera trained on him. He shifted left and right and moved his arms, and the display copied him perfectly.
At first, it was hard for him to accept that the person in the display window was him. He didn't realize just how sharp his features had gotten as he'd gotten more active and lost weight. His hair was still short, and sat messy on the top of his head, and while he'd been having Rose help him shave, he'd managed to grow a faint haze of stubble across his face in the time since he'd last done anything with it. He looked....masculine. Strong. He could tell he was still a bit thick in the stomach, but looking at himself armored up, with his five o clock shadow and thicker arms, he, for the first time in his life felt pretty good about himself.
He actually looked really fucking cool. He hoped he never got used to this feeling.
After a long moment of inspecting himself, Jack dismissed the screen, and closed down the Terminal. By this point, Frumpkin had somehow amassed half a dozen empty margarita classes at the tiki bar, and was looking more than a little red-faced.
"Alright, I think I'm ready to go back, now." Jack said, turning to him.
Frumpkin finished the last of his cocktail and clumsily set the cup on the bar surface before floating into the air and banishing the tiki bar with a wave of his hand.
"I shought you'd never ashk." Frumpkin said, his head reeling about as he giggled and drifted towards Jack.
Looking back around the room, it occurred to Jack that he had no idea how to get back to the Repository when they left, and knowing Frumpkin as he did, there was no telling if the deity would ever bring him back. Thinking fast, he put his hands on the pedestal, and when the Terminal's screen flashed up before him, he asked "Hey Terminal, can you give me a tool to get back here to access you again later?"
The screen flashed and dissolved into a flickering shape in the pedestal's palm, which solidified a moment later as a small golden whistle hanging on a matching chain. Jack reached out and snatched the whistle up just as Frumpkin put his hand on Jack's shoulder, and Jack found himself being hurtled backwards out of the repository and into a blinding void of white.