It's a Game Jonathan, Honest Part 3 (Patreon)

“Heavy Armor increased by 1. You’re good enough to count as a squire or at least an apprentice to one,” the voice said.

Jonathan slipped to the side and punched Dudley in the temple, dropping him unconscious. “Yeah, I don’t care if you deserve it, beating the snot out of you for a couple of hours is boring as shit and getting from 24 to 25 was painfully slow which probably means I need to go after someone more dangerous if I don’t want to be here forever. I wouldn’t have expected it to get boring, but I guess if you do anything enough it loses its luster.”

He glanced down at his mostly broken bracer and pulled it off using his equipment page. “Yeah, that’s pretty much useless.” He pulled the rope out of the bracer and stuck it in his inventory. He glanced over at the exit to the alley. “If I walk out, is the mission over?”

He sighed as he didn’t get a response. “Right, I need to read the books first, which means I need a way out of combat.” He glanced at the dumpster then over at Dudley, his lips curving up into a smile. “Petunia is always telling Harry to take out the trash.” He walked over, grabbed Dudley by the leg and dragged him over to the TV and propped him up against it. “Yeah, let’s not make this easy for him to get out.”

Jonathan pulled the rope out of his inventory and worked on tying Dudley up.

“Care of Magical Magical creatures increased by 1,” the voice said.

“Meh, I’m not complaining,” Jonathan muttered as he jumped up on the TV, reached down and worked on hauling him up against the dumpster. He was expecting Dudley to be a bit heavy but apparently five points of strength was actually enough to slide Dudley up the dumpster and push until he sort of flopped into it.

“That was easier than I was expecting considering how fat he is,” Jonathan said cheerfully as he moved the TV around to the back of the dumpster. He climbed onto the TV so that he could reach the lid. “I wonder if this will cause him mental issues when he’s older? Eh, probably not.” He shut the lid then climbed onto the lid and pulled out his goblin book and opened it.

“Alchemy skill increased by 2, goblin recipes unlocked,” the voice said.

Jonathan blinked. “Holy shit.” He quickly grabbed the Plans and Patterns book that looked to be in the same odd language and opened it.

“Weapon Smithing increased by 2, Forging Goblin Silver unlocked,” the voice said.

“I’m so glad I gave this to Harry rather than Ron, he’d have gotten a book on making bread,” he said as he set the book next to him and opened the 101 Uses for Dark Potions and Dark Plants.

“Ritual Magic skill increases by 2. Potions skill increased by 2. Potion recipes added,” the voice said cheerfully.

He stacked the book and opened the ‘Dark Plants That Can Kill the Inexperienced Wizard’ one.

“Your Ritual Magic skill increases by 2. Your Herbology increases by 2. Unlocked dangerous Flora Hybridization,” the voice said.

“Yeah, sounds like something I should give to Neville, well at least a copy,” he mused as he opened the Hag Cook book.

“Care of Magical Creatures increased by 1, Cooking increased by 2, Unlocks nonstandard ingredients,” the voice said cheerfully.

“Huh… I wonder if that extends to intelligent spiders, that might be useful,” Jonathan mused as he put his books back in his inventory and saved his game. He jumped down and checked the trash can behind the dumpster and noticed a slightly dinged up aluminum baseball that he’d missed and red generic baseball cap that he could use to cover his scar.

“Let’s see if this ends the mission,” Jonathan said as he walked out of the alley. He blinked a couple of times when he stepped out of the alley and the mission didn’t end. “Okay then, apparently I have to actually get to the Dursleys to end the mission.”

Jonathan ran through his list of ideas then realized he wanted a break. “Exit to Main Menu.”

He grinned as he found himself back in the blackstone room looking at the menu. “How do I spend my coins…” he trailed off as he noticed an icon he was almost sure hadn’t been there the last time he looked. “Right, okay, let’s see what we can buy.”

He flopped down on the chair, grabbed the controller and brought up a page of things that he could buy. “Let’s see, adding endless candy and refreshments to the lounge is only fifty points. We’ll see,” he muttered trying not to splurge before he saw what else he could buy. “Okay, basic magical items for a character are a hundred, more impressive ones are two hundred, and hey, a life stealing dagger for three hundred… yeah, let’s see, a merchant token for 200 and a sibling token for 300 that will follow your lead. Various perks for one to three hundred, oh wandless magic…” he trailed off feeling like he’d been offered the world but knowing that he only had enough coins for a couple of items.

Jonathan frowned slightly as he realized everything other than the Lounge upgrade was an even hundred so he might as well grab it. He purchased the Lounge upgrade and closed the page so that he wasn’t tempted to waste points before he figured out what the relative value of everything was.

He selected the arena then selected Harry and hit the start button. He blinked as he found himself in a large room with two concession stands. He glanced at the large plaques over the stands. ‘Training and Death Matches.’ He glanced around at the various people standing around like NPCs in a video game. “Yeah, even if I wanted to, he’s probably worth more just having access to this place right now.”

Jonathan walked over to the person standing in the training booth and blinked when he saw a list of services.

Basic Training: 10 pounds, two points in a combat skill under 25.

Control Collar: 25 pounds, first one is free.

Advanced Training: 100 pounds a point over a combat skill of 26

Weapons and Armor as marked.

Jonathan grabbed the control collar then looked at Pier’s stats. ‘Little bastard is stronger than Harry even with getting two points. He’s got five points of Blunt skill, no Block or defensive skills, I guess I could give him a club… or a baseball bat.” He dragged the baseball bat from his inventory and dragged it to Piers equipment page. “That should help once I find extra gear.”

“Some of the death matches have restrictions on gear,” The Clerk offered.

Jonathan glanced at the clerk wondering if he was supposed to say anything. ‘Yeah, I’m going to go insane if I can’t find someone to actually talk to.’ He grabbed the basic training option for Piers, bringing his Blunt Weapons skill up to 7 points. He walked over to the Death Matches and looked at the list of people and monsters that he could challenge as well as the prizes. ‘Low end weapons and armor, cash and tokens for pets and slaves. I’ll come back for the tokens when I have someone that’s older than five.”

He tried to save his game.

“I’m sorry, saving or temporal reversions are not allowed in the arena,” the voice said.

“No save scumming, got it,” Jonathan muttered, not terribly surprised that he couldn’t cheat that blatantly. He looked at the easiest challenge. “Piers VS Slime… five pounds if you win and death if you don’t. Blah screw it, he’s a little monster anyways. Let’s see what happens.” He selected the match then blinked when it said ‘Piers Wins, Flawless Victory!’ in large letters. “Huh, I didn’t get to see anything. That’s mildly annoying, good thing he won.” He glanced at the next fight. “Piers VS Three Legged Dog?” He glanced at Pier health and noticed that he was still at full health. “Okay, let’s try that again,” he muttered as he selected the fight.

“Piers Wins!’ appeared on the screen.

Jonathan frowned when he glanced at Piers health and noticed that he’d lost a third of his health. “Vicious little bastard.” He looked through the next couple of fights on the list. “Giant crab, bookworm, mailman…” he trailed off as he scanned down the list. “Dementors? Yeah, that’s fucked considering they’re supposed to be immortal.”

“Most people just use the challenge as a way to get rid of slaves they don’t want,” The Clerk replied.

Jonathan glanced at the prize. “What exactly is a Cloak of Eldritch Might?” He sighed as The Clerk didn’t acknowledge his question. He walked over to the nearest person and glanced at the dialogue options that looked like the options he saw in certain video games. “Let’s see if any of the NPCs have anything useful to say.”

“Welcome to the wonderful world of dialogue. Certain dialogue options can change your reputation and options moving forward,” the voice explained.

“Seems straightforward enough,” Jonathan muttered as he walked over to an older man in a purple and green pinstripe suit that looked at least fifty years out of fashion and looked at his dialogue options. “What type of slave is best?”

“Muggleborns of course,” the man replied as if he was explaining something to a particularly stupid child.

Jonathan glanced over his dialogue options, slightly surprised that several of them had colored borders. ‘Let’s see, ‘Slavery? What the fuck is wrong with you?’ has a yellow border and ‘Let’s duel in the arena!’ has a black border which probably means he’d take me up on it.’ He glanced at the blue option. “Where would I find extra muggleborns?”

“Right in the middle of London of course, just take the floo to the Leaky Cauldron. Diagon Alley always has some muggleborn wandering around, filthy creatures,” the man said with distaste.

“Etiquette increased by 1. Diagon Alley, Leaky Cauldron, Leaky Cauldron Floo address unlocked,” the voice said cheerfully.

‘That should make getting magic slightly easier,’ Jonathan thought to himself as he walked over to the next unpleasant looking NPC to see if he could learn anything else. “What can you tell me about dragons?”

“Beyond the fact that they’re quite dangerous and illegal to own?” the witch asked with a touch of amusement.

“I don’t suppose you know where I can buy a dragon egg?” Jonathan asked, picturing using a dragon in the pet arena.

The witch glanced at his baseball hat and ragged clothes. “Even if I knew where to find one, I doubt you could afford it. If you’re really interested, you should try Knockturn Alley, they sell all sorts of questionable products.”

Jonathan was half surprised that he didn’t get a notice about his Etiquette check failing with the way she’d looked him over before answering. “Something to work on,” he muttered under his breath as he moved to the next NPC on the off chance they had anything useful to say. 

0o0o0

Jonthan grinned as he reappeared in the black stone room and saw the snack bar filled with various types of candy and sodas on the side wall. “Andrew would be squealing like a girl.” He quickly walked over and looked over the extensive collection of candy. “Okay, focus, what would Buffy do?” he asked himself as he grabbed a large ‘World’s Best Sorcerer’ mug off the stand and filled it with root beer. “Charge in like a Slayer, which doesn’t help me. Giles? Tell Buffy to take care of the problem.”

“Xander would probably make a joke then come up with a list of things to work on,” he mused as he stuck his mug under the soft serve ice cream and pulled the lever. ‘Long term, I need to escape, even if I have the best snack bar in the world.’ He walked back over to the couch and sat down. “Okay, if I’m stuck here for the foreseeable future, I might as well focus on crushing the game, which probably includes dealing with Voldemort. Thankfully he’s not as scary as Willow.”

Jonathan grabbed the controller with his free hand and brought up Harry’s skills. “Outside of Ritual Magic which looks a bit dark, I’m going to need a wand or a lab if I want to level Harry’s magical skills before he gets to Hogwarts.”

Jonathan worked on drinking his float as he considered his options. He was reasonably sure the items were traps or at least or at least a waste of coins considering he could probably find most of them eventually. He’d seen a number of tokens in the arena which meant a lot of the stuff he could buy was available which meant he should probably save his coins for stuff that wasn’t easy to get. “Then again, I didn’t see any tokens for wandless magic.”

He brought up the store page and scrolled down until he found the wandless magic token. “Huh, that’s better than I was expecting, no need for a wand or even waving your hand around like an idiot. It even reduces the penalty for silent casting which is nice. I’d still have 900 coins.” He scrolled through the rather long list of items that he could buy, checking prices. “Okay, nothing looks too expensive which means if I need to buy something else, I can.”

He went back and forth a few times as he finished his float. “Okay, stop being a coward,” he muttered to himself as he pushed the button and bought the wandless magic token. He exited the shop menu and spent the token on Harry before he could talk himself into letting it sit in his inventory. He selected the new video icon and grinned when he saw an arena entry. He quickly brought up the fight between Piers and the slime.

Jonathan knew he shouldn’t really laugh about the scared looking kid fighting a blue basketball sized slime but it was sort of amusing. “I wonder if there is a spell to conjure slimes,” he mused as he selected the video of the fight against the vicious looking three legged pitbull. He winced slightly when the dog managed to bite Piers’ leg before be could bash it to death, an exceedingly bloody and brutal scene. “Yeah, he’s going to need some armor or I’m going to need to find a better fighter.”

Jonathan went back to the main menu and looked through his notices and alert settings, swapping the occasional alert from voice to text so that they’d be easier to ignore as he was planning on grinding a number of skills.

0o0o0

Jonathan selected Harry’s portrait and hit accept. He glanced back at the dumpster in the alley where he could hear Dudley shouting then started running down the street. He glanced at his stamina bar, which was actually holding steady thanks to his ring of regeneration. He grinned slightly as he saw an empty bench half a block away next to a newspaper rack and a tree. “I might as well take advantage of Harry’s regeneration.”

He saved his game and ran toward the bench, knowing he was probably going to break something or screw up. He pushed himself as hard as he could as he dodged through the crowd. He jumped onto the bench then jumped to the newspaper rack and pushed off with his legs as hard as he could aiming for the tree branch. He had one glorious moment as he caught the branch with both hands and swung up before he crashed into a fat woman.

“Acrobatics unlocked,” the voice said cheerfully as the fat woman started hitting Jonathan with her purse.

Jonathan stared at the disturbingly high amount of damage the angry woman had done to Harry’s hit points with her purse then brought his arms up to work on his Block skill when he realized she wasn’t stopping. ‘Crazy bitch hits harder than Dudley.’ He glanced at his hit points which were thankfully regenerating decently quickly thanks to his ring. ‘Yeah, I’d be screwed without this ring.’ He continued blocking as he mentally brought up his skill page. ‘Huh, I’m actually getting decent progress for this.’

He stuck his tongue out at the woman and flipped her off.

“You little shit!” the woman shouted as she kicked Jonathan with a surprising amount of skill,  sending him staggering backwards and dealing an alarming amount of damage.

“Okay, bitch, that’s it,” Jonathan complained as he shifted his stance. He dodged her next purse swing to give his hit points a chance to recover then punched at her leg when she tried to kick him again. He winced as he took a glancing blow, not being quite fast enough to escape getting hit.

“I’m going to have you thrown in prison you little shit!” the woman shouted as she tried to beat Jonathan to death with her purse once more.

He worked on blocking as he waited for his hit points to recover. He dodged her kick, managing to punch her in the leg.

“Help! This little shite attacked me!” the woman shouted as she continued trying to beat him to a pulp.

“Warning, due to a special attack, your fight has been noticed. If you’re seen by the cops, your reputation will take a hit,” the voice said cheerfully as a police officer appeared out of thin air the next block over.

‘Friggin’ GTA rules,’ Jonthan grumbled to himself as he turned and worked his way into Abby’s Pawn Shop, doing his best to block the woman’s purse and occasional kick. “She’s trying to kill me!”

The twenty something woman behind the counter shouted, “No fighting!”

“This little shite hit me! I’m going to thrash him,” the woman said as she continued trying to cave in Harry’s skull with her purse.

Abby reached down and grabbed a baseball bat as she walked over toward the fight. “I’m warning you!”

“She’s insane,” Jonathan said as he ducked behind a display of crystal vases. He winced as the woman hit several of the vases with her purse, causing one of them to shatter and knocking several other vases off the table.

“That’s it, bitch!” Abby stepped forward and slammed her baseball bat into the woman’s head from behind, dropping her unconscious. “I said no fighting!”

“I’m sorry, dragging your mob to an NPC to finish off results in no experience,” the voice said helpfully.

Jonathan held up his hands. “Sorry, I bumped into her and she wouldn’t stop hitting me.”

Abby smiled down at Harry. “Don’t worry about it, some people are just rotten. You should probably head out the back before the bobbies get here.”

Jonathan winced as he noticed a floating green timer appear. ‘Yeah, that’s never good.’ He quickly looked at his conversation options. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Abby replied cheerfully as she walked to the counter and put her baseball bat away.

Jonathan briefly considered grabbing the fat woman’s purse, as it made a disturbingly effective weapon, but decided that it wasn’t worth upsetting the girl that had just casually knocked the woman unconscious with a baseball bat. He sighed in relief as he stepped into the alley behind the shop and the timer vanished. He checked Harry’s sheet. ‘Okay, I don’t see any notices for criminal behavior, so I’m probably okay.’

“Congratulations on escaping the law. Certain criminal acts can result in lowered reputation and possible jail time, depending on location and evidence,” the voice explained.

“In other words, don’t get caught,” Jonathan muttered as he checked the trash cans for anything useful. ‘Old take out, cardboard, and an old phone book.’ He pulled his pocket knife out of his inventory and carefully cut the map out of the phone book only for the map to vanish.

“Congratulations, you’ve unlocked the mini map,” the voice said cheerfully.

Jonathan flipped to the section in the book on thrift shops with a grin. “That makes things easier.” He marked the location of the shop on his map then stuffed the phone book in his inventory, figuring he’d probably need it later. He looked at the greyed out map with several markers on it. ‘At least I’ll be able to get around the local area.’

He put the cardboard in his inventory as well and saved the game before heading toward the thrift shop.