THE MOMENT
"I'm not an idiot," Kirk was trying not to take it personally. "I've tried to dismiss it, a bunch!"
"No one's saying you're an idiot," Molly tried to keep him calm, but she was the only one.
"Sorry, I did kind of think you were an idiot when I told you to clear it," Petunia confessed with a nod and a smirk. The three of them were the last remnants of a 4-team raid. The loot was divided, and Kirk had won the roll for a legendary ring. But the moment he put it on, he panicked as his flesh dissolved and left him as a cursed skeleton. It'd been a few minutes since then, and everyone else was gone; but, he had no idea how to turn it off.
"It's working though, right?" Molly asked. She was trying to troubleshoot the issue, and her first idea was to ensure it was functioning properly, whatever that entailed. "What does 'relentless, and unyielding strength' feel like? Does the icon have a tooltip?"
"Yeah, it's working. It says 'Skeleton Form', with a Monstrous Strength boost and immunity to magic; but, I lose all my MP. Which, I did," he confirmed.
"Did you know what it did before you rolled for it?" Petunia asked. She was starting to think he was an idiot after all if their wizard wanted an item like that.
"Yeah," Kirk nodded. "It's basically a weaker version of the Skeleton Oversoul, and there are a lot of ways to build around it."
"Oh, well, as long as you knew...," Petunia answered.
"It shouldn't be permanent though...," Kirk added.
"Try logging out and back in again?" Molly suggested.
"'Kay," Kirk nodded, then shimmered. His green and gold wizard robes, along with his skeletal frame, disintegrated into the same white dust his skin became when he put on the ring, and in moments, he was standing before his friends in his regular school clothes of jeans and a t-shirt. He had fair skin again, along with eyes and hair. He waited a moment, then held up his node and gave his password.
"I'm magic, man," he blurted it out quickly, and the glass card began to glow in his hand with golden light. It flashed and he was a robed skeleton once more.
"Still can't dismiss it," he said as he turned his glowing gaze to Petunia. She'd been focused on her own node, but she looked up and met his eyes when she felt he was talking to her. Then, she resumed scrolling through whatever she was reading.
"Take it off and put it on again?" Molly asked.
"I already logged out...," Kirk started to complain, assuming it wouldn't make a difference. In his mind, logging out and logging in again was a more thorough 'reset', not that he'd ever had to do it. The AlterNet wasn't usually glitchy like that without a reason. But, he didn't have any better ideas and pulled the ring off. The moment he did, his skin reappeared. He counted to 10, then put the ring back on. His skin disintegrated again.
"Still can't dismiss it," he shook his skull. For a second, he thought he'd done something hilarious because Petunia immediately burst out laughing. Both he and Molly looked at her.
"Hey, idiot," Petunia smiled at Kirk. "You said you knew what it does, but I don't think you actually read the tooltip on the ring itself."
"He's not an idiot...," Molly sighed. She was defending him mostly out of habit at this point. They'd spent the school year getting to know each other, and by now Kirk and Petunia understood each other's personalities enough.
"What do you mean?" Kirk asked. Except, as he asked the question, he checked the item in his inventory. "Oh." he said.
"What?" Molly asked.
"It says it works automatically, and the only way to turn off the effect is to take off the ring..." he said. He didn't feel too stupid for missing that detail, the print was extra fine. "Makes sense for balance, I guess...," he sighed. Not being able to turn it off and on at will immediately disqualified many of the strategies he wanted to try.
"Alright, well problem solved then. What's next?" Molly asked.
"Lunch?" Kirk asked. Molly shrugged, then looked at Petunia for her input.
"Yeah, lunch sounds good. I guess the idiot has smart ideas sometimes," she grinned.