John spent the rest of the class sitting around, keeping his head low and regenerating mana. With the extra Observe he had thrown at Moira it had sunk to almost zero. By the end of class, it was back up to seven. Not enough to Possess something. No problem, because he had just been given a strong hint that he was not alone in having access to magic.
Which reduced the chances of this being a dream.
And drastically increased the chances of him being in danger.
There was a fifteen minute break between this and his next class, which would be art by Ms Summers (Or June as she preferred to be called). He considered checking on the state of the orange juice, if only because he was thirsty. A window appeared and gave him a different task.
New Quest: Stalk the Warden
Find Moira Brighton and follow her around for three minutes without getting spotted.
Reward: 350 Exp.
Optional: Masturbate while remaining unseen
Reward: 1000 Exp.
Accept?
John stared at the window. In thought, he tilted his head. That optional reward was just ridiculous but so was the condition bound to it. Also, what exactly was a Warden of the Golden Rose? Questions for later. Regardless of all that, looking for Moira was probably a good idea. She had sensed him, or at least he thought so and spotted him afterwards. From what little he knew about her, she seemed to be in the paladin archetype of a person. In other words, if he wanted to reveal himself, she was as good a choice as he would get this early on. Really, this was lucky.
Or he was horribly wrong and he was courting death.
‘Do I want to just go back to my video games today or do I want to do something for a change?’ the thought occurred involuntarily to the Gamer. A moment later, he had tapped the Accept button. Hopefully he could get the Quest reward, then approach her. Optimally, she had only sensed his presence, not exactly where he had been at the time.
Finding Moira was a bit tricky though. He knew that she just had a sports class but that didn’t make it easier. Typically, the sports classes ended about twenty minutes early so that students had the opportunity to take a shower. If she was somebody who showered quickly she could be anywhere by now. If she showered for as long as possible he wouldn’t get a chance to talk to her before the next class started. Which would be a shame because looking at June’s tits was one of the few enjoyable parts of school.
Either way the dressing room was the best bet to start the search. He made his way there, doing his best to stay away from the public eye. After all, Frank was on the loose. After getting blocked from a victim, he must have been in a foul mood.
New Skill gained: Sneaking Lvl 1
You sneak, make less noise during movement and are generally harder to spot. Useful to suppress your already tiny presence. Costs 1 MP per 10 seconds.
He looked at his MP: 11. This meant he could do it for 2 minutes exactly when taking regeneration into the calculation. Not bad, probably. He still had to find her though and as such turned the last corner.
Where she stood, just leaning against a pillar. Rapidly, John took a step back. ‘Did she spot me?’ He crouched, activating the Sneaking Skill. He was just about to consider a tactical retreat, when a window opened.
Target found, stay within ten metres for the next 3 minutes or the quest will be failed.
‘Oh fucking fantastic’ John moaned into his mind. ‘It’s one of those Quests.’ Great thing was he didn’t get a little map with a circle in his interface or anything else useful like that. He just had to guess where she was. He could use Possession on a pillar to look at her. But just once, for twenty seconds and she had sensed him earlier. No reason to believe she couldn’t repeat that. In this situation, his best bet was keeping quiet and staying right where he was.
She stepped around the corner, arms crossed.
“What are you doing?” Moira asked, eyebrow raised. She seemed more puzzled than offended.
John sighed and pressed away the giant ‘QUEST FAILED!’ pop-up. ‘There goes my free level.’ He thought and straightened up. At least he had the wisdom not to take his dick out. That would have been impossible to explain. “Sorry, just thought I dropped something.” He lied hastily.
“Uh-huh…” the redhead looked unconvinced.
John took a deep breath and sorted his thoughts. The best idea he had was to come just straight out with it. “Weird question but… what is a Golden Rose?”
Moira looked at him with suspicion for half a second. Suddenly, her hand was on his collar. Even with the instinctual struggle he put up against her was completely overwhelmed. Like a wagon getting towed by a truck, he was dragged to a dark corner of the corridor. Moira at least had the decency to shove him softly against the wall.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“J-John, John Newman.” He stammered. Her emerald green eyes drilled into him. The stern expression on her face did the rest and the words just blurted out of his mouth. “Sorry, it’s just, well, I can see the words ‘Warden of the Golden Rose’ above your head.”
Now Moira looked confused again. “I have never heard of such a spell.” She muttered and finally let go of his collar.
John pulled at it a bit to fix his uniform. “So, you do know spells?” he asked. This wasn’t what he had wanted. In hindsight, going straight at it was actually pretty stupid. ‘I need Charisma,’ he realized. ‘I suck at people.’ That aside, this was going quite well.
“Of course, I do, if you are able to use such weird spells you should be able to feel my mana.”
“Actually… I just woke up today with this… ‘weird spell’. Part of a set of Gamer powers, at least the windows tell me that.” John explained to her. “I’ve been experimenting all morning and then… I kinda stumbled over you during class.”
“You were the presence I felt earlier!” she declared.
She skipped on the ‘attached to a girl’s butt’ part and he felt it best to bury that particular truth as quickly as possible. “Yes, I thought you tracked the power back to me so I tried to find you and explain myself.” At least he could construct a believable half-truth quickly enough. “Also, I wanted to find out what is going on.”
Moira shook her head, “No, my Order has others who would seek you. You’re wise to come to me out of your own volition.” She once more crossed her arms over her decently sized bust. “We would have found you.”
‘Then who was watching me?’ John wondered, ‘Just paranoia? Probably…’
“But you say you awoke just today… an Innate Ability with nothing to trigger it or… perhaps a true Latebloomer?” she looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Tell me, what do you want to do with these powers?”
“I… don’t know,” John responded honestly.
“…if Lorelei was here she could judge you properly,” Moira mumbled and rubbed her forehead. “You do strike me as an innocent soul.” John’s browser history would disagree. He nodded anyway. “Very well. Listen, your life will depend on it. You have entered the Abyss.”