Back to Reality

For a second, John felt as if he was heading down an endless pit. Then, all motion stopped with a jolt and John buckled under the sudden shift of momentum. He took a few staggered steps towards the main desk and braced himself against it until his balance returned. As he rested, a pop-up manifested in front of him.

John dismissed the Skill display, taking it as a sign that he had exited the Trap Barrier correctly, and surveyed the room. It looked exactly as it had in the Barrier, except for the intact door. The steady ticking of the room’s clock drew John’s attention and his eyes widened when he saw the time.

‘I was in the Barrier for over thirty minutes,’ he thought, stomach rumbling as he realized he missed lunch.

Before he could grumble about his empty stomach, a flicker of motion caught his attention. In an instant, the empty corner of the desk had Aeolia perched upon it; the exact same spot she had taken back in the Barrier.

“Looks like you were right,” she said as she looked around the room, flexing her wings slowly.

“Is getting out of a Barrier always going to feel like free falling?” John asked, not that eager to have to repeat the process every time he left a Barrier.

“Eh,” Aeolia said with a small shrug, “not really. You’ll get used to it. Anyways, time to get moving.”

Aeolia paused, her face contorting into a frown as she glanced out the windows.

“You know if there are any cameras on the outside walls?” Aeolia asked, gesturing with her head towards the outward facing wall.

“Um.” John walked towards the wall and stopped just before the line of windows, trying to envision the exterior of the building. “I’m not sure. Why?”

“If there are, I can’t just go through the window to get out of this building,” Aeolia said, her tone sharp. “Ain’t risking getting poofed out of existence.”

John frowned as an errant thought crossed his mind. “You crashed through a window in the Barrier. How’d you fly to it without getting, well, poofed?”

Aeolia sighed and shook her head. “I had a little bit of an Invisibility potion to cover me. Used what I had to track down the dog boy and it wore off when I entered the Barrier.”

She regarded the windows one last time, then turned her back towards them.

“Flying out isn’t an option,” she said, her body shifting uncomfortably as her eyes landed on John’s backpack, “I guess I’ll have to hide in your bag.”

“Your plan is to hide in my bag till the end of the day?” John asked incredulously.

“Of course not,” Aeolia retorted indignantly, her wings flexing disgruntledly. “Just long enough for you to get us out of here so we can get moving.”

“I can’t just leave school in the middle of the day,” John shot back, before his face took on a sour grimace when he realized what he had said.

“Well, I don’t really have time to just sit around and wait for you to finish studying,” Aeolia said, levelling a harsh glare at John. She then let out a sigh and cooled her features.

“Okay, look,” she said, “I need to get to my guild’s HQ. See if anyone didn’t get... killed.”

John felt his jaw clench and he eyed the clock.

“Alright,” he acquiesced, “we’ll go straight to your HQ. But we need to think of a way to leave the school without people knowing. If I just leave, it’ll lead to headaches.”

“Fine,” Aeolia said in agreement. “You getting held up would be a pain. So, how are you going to pull it off?”

“That is the question,” John mused, his thoughts racing through his options.

‘Just leaving isn’t going to work,’ John thought, repeating internally what he has already stated out loud, ‘but how can we get out of here without getting caught? Play sick? There’s no way the nurse will buy it. Same with faking an injury. Plus, I don’t want to worry Mom or have her come to get me.’

John’s eyes wandered around the room as he tried to come up with a plan. The ticking clock was not helping with the pressure and John gave it a heated glare. Then, he noticed the red box of the fire alarm next to the clock. From there, his eyes darted to the center of the room’s ceiling, where the metal of a fire sprinkler stood out from the surrounding plaster.

“Okay,” John said, a grin growing, “think I’ve got an idea.”

“I think I like the look of that smile,” Aeolia said, her own gracing her lips. “So, what have you got?”

“You know how fire sprinklers work?” John asked her, gesturing with his head up to the protruding bit of metal.

“Of course I do,” Aeolia replied with a slight heat to her voice. “Fire makes them go off and shoot water all over the place. Your plan is to flood the place?”

“Kinda,” John answered. “They have a glass tube that shatters when heated, which lets the water flow. I’m thinking we can set off the alarm that’s out in the hall and the sprinklers. Just doing the alarm would only get us out until the fire department clears the school, but setting off the sprinklers should get the admin to close it for at least the day. And I can use Hex to take out the camera in the hallway.”

Aeolia considered the plan for a moment, folding her arms under her bosom as she did. The action reminded John of when he could see down her cleavage back in the Barrier and he found his eyes glued to her boosted breasts.

“I think that’ll work,” Aeolia said with a nod, unfolding her arms. John quickly tore his eyes away, not wanting to be caught staring. “Any reason you’re looking at the ceiling again?”

“Just, um, stretching my neck,” John said in as casual a tone he could muster.

Smooth.

‘Really?’ John thought despondently as the snide pop-up vanished as quickly as it appeared. ‘I know I’m hopeless. Don’t need to rub it in.’

“Right,” Aeolia said, her tone tinged with slight suspicion. “So, anything more to the plan?”

“Not that I can think of,” John said, now looking back at her. “I pull the alarm, you open up one or two of the sprinklers then hide in my bag until we can get away. And if they don’t call off the rest of the school day, I can use the opportunity outside to let you out.”

“If that happens, then it happens,” Aeolia said with a sour frown on her face. “Let’s just hope I won’t be spending all day in there. We doing this right now?”

John glanced at the clock. “In a few minutes, just before the bell goes off, so we won’t risk being seen by someone leaving a nearby room. And it’ll give me time to do something.”

“Do what?” Aeolia asked, her head cocked to one side.

“I’ve got to invest my Stat Points,” John said, pulling up his Character Sheet.

He blinked when he noticed the quartet of plus ones and the plus two in Charisma, then remembered he was wearing the Amulet of Valor.

‘That’s a good thing,’ he thought, a hand lightly touching said item through his shirt, ‘lets me see all the bonuses I’ve got running. Now what to spend my points on?’

John’s eyes scanned over his Skill list and thought back to his contributions to the fight.

‘Most of my Skills right now revolve around manipulating items or magic in some way. And now that I have items to use them with, boosting my Mana or Mana Regen sounds like a good idea. But I should probably boost Strength too so I can use my knife better, and it looks like Strength is what makes HP Regen more effective, which is a plus there.’

‘Charisma and Libido are not something that are likely to help me in the near future. Yeah, I could use Charm better with higher Charisma and it would probably make talking to people easier, but getting my fighting ability up sounds like it’d be better.’

John stared at the sheet, aware that time was getting short and Aeolia was impatiently waiting for him so they could get moving.

‘OK, let’s put two into Strength, one each in Intelligence and Wisdom. Since Agility’s already my second highest Stat, I think Endurance should get the last point. And I guess tapping the Stat will add a point.’

He tapped Strength, and sure enough, the displayed ‘8’ changed into a ‘9’ and the number of Stat Points dropped to ‘4’. He repeated the process with the rest of his selections, then closed his Character Sheet.

“You know,” Aeolia said, drawing John’s attention over to her, “you look kinda stupid tapping the air like that. Done?”

John flushed as he envisioned just what he looked like to others, vowing to himself to always have something solid in front of him to project his screens onto.

“So, um,” he stuttered out, “all done. We should get going.”

“Finally,” the winged woman said, wings stretching before she flapped into the air. She glided the short distance over to John and landed on his shoulder with more grace than last time.

‘Is she already recovered?’ John pondered. ‘Or has she just gotten a handle on her current limits?’

He glanced at her, and she shot him a cocky grin, tapping her glaive against her shoulder.

“We doing this thing, or not?”

John couldn’t help but to return her smile and nodded sharply.

With less than a minute until the bell rang, John opened the door into the hallway, making sure he remained behind the door.

‘Okay, the camera should be right before the corner down the hall,’ John thought, visualizing the hall in his mind, in particular the black half-sphere that housed the security camera somewhere to his left. He let out a breath and directed a Hex at the camera.

For a second, John didn’t know if his Skill had connected, then he was greeted by a pop-up.

Skill Level Up: Hex Lv. 2. Cost reduced to 19MP.

“Go,” John urged Aeolia to begin her part of the plan, walking out into the now unmonitored hall towards the fire alarm.

The AvenFae woman took to the air with a flap of her wings and darted towards the nearest fire sprinkler, glaive slightly glowing with magically evoked wind. She thrust her weapon into the sprinkler, shattering the glass vial of liquid. Immediately, water gushed forth from the unblocked safety instrument, spraying the floor below.

Aeolia gracefully avoided the artificial rain and landed a strike to the second sprinkler, before she flew back to John. The Gamer himself had made it to the alarm, casting a second Hex at the camera to ensure it remained offline. Aeolia landed on his shoulder, a pleased grin on her face.

“That enough?” she asked, glancing back at her handiwork.

“Perfect,” John said. “Get in the bag. Once I pull this, we’ll be heading outside.”

Aeolia failed to keep the sour look off her face, but nodded and slid down into the slightly opened pack. His ally secured, John pulled the alarm, setting off the blaring bells through the Academy. The first part of the plan complete, John moved hastily towards the nearest exit, hoping that the second part would have the same success.