A brand new day

“Good morning, John” Alice responded to his greeting meekly. John noticed a slight hint in her voice that he had never noticed before, a hint he could not exactly place. With the addition of the slight wincing of her features when she spoke, however, he managed to. It was as if something was bothering her, though it was subtle enough that he would not have noticed without his newfound Charisma. Nonetheless, that made John worry. Yesterday she had been unresponsive to him when she had become annoyed with Vanessa and her posse. John became worried that behaviour, which he could identify as the same one which caused their separation in the first place even if it was mostly on his part, was repeating itself. Regardless, he was not confident in his ability to remedy the situation at the time, even with his now increased Charisma so he did not touch on the topic with Alice. Instead, he sat down and attempted to start a conversation with her. After much coaxing, he was successful, although the topic of that conversation did not stray outside the realms of small talk, which disappointed John.

Eventually, the school bus reached the academy. Unlike the previous day where they seemed inseparable until after they had left the bus, this time they were much more distant. John constantly attempted to remedy this but was unable to do so thanks to Alice’s detached demeanour. He was also **** to leave her presence much earlier due to her running off almost as soon as they got off the bus. At this point, John knew something more was at play, there was no way that Alice would have changed her attitude so much without something happening, but he had no clue what it could be. He spent most of the day worrying about what it might be and attempting to figure out what had caused it, forgetting almost everything else. Not including two strange things that happened that day, however.

During his first class, which was business, he did not pay any attention, as all he could do was worry about Alice. He continued to attempt to find some solution to the current situation even if he couldn't find out what caused it, and used Psychic Connection to ease his mind when he himself found thinking about it too much. Sadly, Psychic Connection did not give him anything new that class nor did it help him in solving the situation with Alice, so once the class had ended John went onto his next class, which was chemistry.

Just like in business class, during chemistry almost nothing happened, except for one thing that was of some interest that occurred while John was using Psychic Connection. Just as John had felt during the previous day, at about the middle of chemistry class, he felt a mind outside the classroom. At first he obviously thought the mind was out of range as it was the previous day but when he went to touch it, he found it was not. This confused him as it seemed to be at about the same distance as the mind he was unable to touch the previous day, but then he realized what that meant, it meant that his inability to touch the mind the previous day was proof of magic and that whoever was in that hallway must have had some way of disrupting Psychic Connection.

'It could even be the same person that disrupted it during Wentworth's class' John concluded, proceeding to attempt to investigate further. When he once again attempted to touch the mind to continue in the investigation, the mind was no longer there, seemingly disappearing just as it had the previous day. As it had done so, John found no reason to do anything further, as looking for it now would only put him in more danger and the likelihood of him finding anything useful in that search was quite small. Knowing that, he decided instead to spend the rest of the class seeing if the mind would return, but sadly it did not. Disappointed but encouraged by the fact that the end of the day was closing in, John went to his next class, which was sociology.

Just like in business class, nothing of importance happened during sociology and, once again, John spent most of the class using Psychic Connection or thinking about his problem with Alice. By the time the class had ended, he had not found any solution. After sociology, John had his lunch break, and that meant he needed to talk to Alice. He wasn’t sure whether he should talk to her about the possible issue yet or not, as he had still not found any solution, and he very much doubted his abilities to do so well. It seemed to him that he should at least mention the date that they had planned, however. For that reason, he went to search for her, but before he could find her, he found something that almost immediately grabbed his attention.

While walking down a corridor, one that in this case was strangely empty, something glinted in the corner of his eye, just as something had the previous day, but this time he caught it. His head moved at breakneck speed to the right of him, where he had spotted the glint. When he reached the place where he had spotted the glint, he noticed a slight shimmer in the air almost like the one Arcane Barrier makes, though it was less blue and more naturally coloured. Almost as quickly as he had moved his head, he used Observe on the shimmer as it indicated to him that someone or something of great interest to him was there, and indeed, someone was. The sheet that followed would become one of the most important moments in John’s life.

Under that shimmer, someone was there, the first person John had found that he could absolutely confirm was connected to magic. Her sheet gave him no clues, and even though he felt comfort from the fact that the person whom he now knew was a woman named Ember did not think him anything more than a normal human. He was sure that if he stayed there she would quickly discover that was not the case, so he attempted to retreat. Sadly for John, it was already too late.

A moment later, the shimmer was gone. Instead of it stood a beautiful purple-haired woman, Ember. She was wearing some piece of clothing John could not exactly place, as it seemed to be a combination of an eastern dress and a western one. Like her hair, most of it was purple, though a large chunk of it was black, the colours interweaving with each other in the oddest places. John, however, noticed none of this, as he was much too shocked by Ember’s appearance to examine her. Even if he had noticed this, however, Ember's odd clothing and look would have only added to his confusion.

“Who are you?” She said in a calm tone, her voice displaying a level of professionalism and composure higher than anything John had heard before. All the while she was seemingly ready to lunge at him with something resembling a blade she had pulled out of her clothes and was now in her hand.

“Well, I’m ummmmm-” John stuttered, not knowing how to respond, his mind rushing in an attempt to find something to say to the woman now in front of him. Before he could finish thinking of something, however, he was interrupted by Ember doing exactly what she had prepared to do, and a moment later a knife was on his throat.

“Talk clearly and quickly or you might not live to regret it,” She said, her tone slightly less calm than before, clearly agitated by John’s inability or unwillingness to answer her. She was holding him from behind and had locked both of his arms before he could move an inch. She was so quick in fact, that he hadn’t even seen her move. At least that’s what John thought had happened. All of this caused him to panic, and he blurted out the first thing he could think of, everything.

“I’m John Newman, I’m a student at this school and yesterday I woke up with powers, I don’t really know how to use them, and I barely know what’s going on, but I know some things. I know you’re part of something called the “Council of Exploration” and that you lived in something called the “Abyss”, and I know of some other people who have magic in this school. A girl named Moira Brighton, and one named Rave, I have no idea what I could say that would confirm my identity, but I’m sorry, that’s literally everything I know, please don’t kill me,” John said at a pace that by most except those fearing their **** is quickly approaching would be called impossible, but not at all clearly.

“Hold on, so you want me to believe you’re a late bloomer who’s only been active since yesterday and you somehow found me without any assistance? Fat chance of that. Now tell me who you really are,” Ember responded, her tone once again becoming less calm and her pace increasing. When she had finished speaking, she moved the blade closer to John’s throat.

“Seriously, that’s who I am, I don’t know how to prove it to you, but I’ll do anything, just please don’t kill me, please,” John responded, his pace speeding up once again and the tone of his voice showing how deeply he was begging to the woman.

“Fine, there’s one way you can prove it to me, and for your sake, I hope you are able to. Now don’t say anything, scream, or make any sudden movements, or I will kill you. Got it?” Ember said, her voice returning to a slightly calmer tone, when she finished speaking she waited for an answer from John, who responded with a nod a moment later.