Homeward Bound

“That’s not going to be a problem, is it?” John asked Aeolia sheepishly. “I got caught up in the moment there.”

Aeolia smiled slightly. “I can’t think of why it would. Worst case, we’ll have to link up your computer to the Auction. Probably should do that first anyway.”

“You didn’t really explain much about that before,” John said as the pair trekked towards the entrance. John made sure to grab his bag from where Aeolia had placed it after his Observe episode. “I mean, I get the idea from the name, but why would I need to be linked up to a magical marketplace for this thing to work?”

“Something Zeph said once,” Aeolia responded, sadness creeping into her voice as she recalled her brother. “The Auction leaves an imprint on computers that marks it as one used by someone in the Abyss. He said it wouldn’t take much work to make that tag work like a lock for other spells and stuff. Since whoever sent him the card was someone who understood all the magic jargon, they might have put in something to prevent a non-linked computer from giving a readout.”

John nodded, seeing the benefits of such a system.

“How does that work anyway?” he inquired. “Are there wizards that work with computers and stuff?”

“Yeah, technomancers,” Aeolia answered, “not really the most common, and the Auction has most of them. Pay them something like twelve million a year.”

“Twelve million a year,” John repeated, his voice rising in volume at the shock of their value.

Aeolia shrugged. “That’s the word on the street at least. Might be more. Not a lot of people could afford to pay what the Auction can, so they set the price high enough to pull in all the talent.”

“How can they have that much money?” John quired, still a little starstruck by the number.

Aeolia stared at John for a moment before her eyes lit with realization.

“Oh, right,” she muttered, “things on the mundane side are cheaper, aren’t they? Guess that means pay would be smaller too?”

“Um, wouldn’t know,” John replied lamely. “Never had a job and I don’t really know how much my parents make.”

“Not a big deal,” Aeolia said with a teasing smile, “just don’t be too shocked when you see the prices.”

“Noted,” John said as they neared the doorway. “Did we have to walk all the way back to the entrance to leave?”

Aeolia frowned at John’s question. “We didn’t have to,” she replied, “but if we left back in the hall, we’d shown up in the outside location that matched it. Popping back to an alleyway is easier to explain than showing up in a building you had no way of entering.”

“What if someone’s in the alley?” John asked. “You’ve got some way to know the coast is clear, right?”

“Not a big problem,” Aeolia responded dismissively. “Like I said back at your school, Gaia makes us invisible when we leave a Barrier, and even when that wears off, people sort of don’t notice if there isn’t anything really standing out to them. If there is anyone in the alley when we pop out, they won’t really care about us.”

Her explanation complete, Aeolia willed herself back to her default size. “You go first and get your bag ready for me to jump into.”

“Same as last time,” John said, making sure his bag was open enough for Aeolia to quickly enter if any observers were present, then stepped into the quiet alleyway. “Here I go.”

John raised a hand and invoked Instant Barrier, instantly feeling himself pulled forward. The odd quiet was broken as the dull rumbling of traffic reached John’s ears, signaling his return had success.

Skill Level Up: Thaumaturgy Lv. 2.

‘Almost forgot about that one,’ he thought as he turned around to face the unmarred and closed steel door, taking a few steps back to make room, ‘I’ll check it out on the way home. Aeolia should be coming through any second.’

Any second proved to be the very next one as Aeolia popped into existence already in motion, wings spread wide to slow her flight. John opened his bag and Aeolia gracefully dropped into the pack, John peering in once he felt her land.

“You good?” he asked as Aeolia made herself as comfortable as possible sitting at the bottom.

“As good as I can possibly be,” she replied sourly, “just don’t move too roughly. I won’t hesitate to stab you.”

John caught the slight humor in her threat and cracked a smile. “I’ll do my best to give you a smooth ride.”

“You better,” Aeolia said, returning the smile as John zipped the bag partially closed and carefully slung it onto his back. Then he steadily made his way back to the bus stop, withdrawing his phone to check the time.

‘2:36,’ he read, pulling up the map to check the linked bus schedule. ‘Next bus should be here at… 2:45. Great, no waiting.’

John reached the empty bus stop right as the bus turned onto the street at the far corner. With a flash of his student ID card he made his way onto the mass transit vehicle, finding it nearly empty with only two other occupants, an eldery woman and a balding man with a straining pot belly.

John made his way to a seat as far from both as possible, placing his bag, and the passenger within, upon the seat with care.

‘Okay,’ John thought as he joined his bag on the bench, ‘it’ll take about thirty minutes to get home. Let’s see what that new level of Thaumaturgy gave me.’

‘Just a small bump to Mana Regen, but every bit helps,’ John mused before frowning slightly, ‘But how did I level it? It’s a passive and I got the level up after I used Instant Barrier so that must have played a factor.’

John tapped a finger at the experience bar of the Skill display. It pulled up an additional sheet that predictably displayed the experience the Skill had, 4 percent to the next level, and, less predictably, revealed a list of the Skills that contributed to Thaumaturgy’s experience.

‘Hex, Amplify, and Instant Barrier,’ John read the three Skills from the list, ‘I guess they do fit into the general theme of ‘direct magic energy manipulation’ of Thaumaturgy. Hex and Amplify affect other magic effects and Instant Barrier literally makes copies of reality. Wonder if the next level will up the regeneration again or increase my mana further?’

John closed the screens and stared out the window, his thoughts drifting to the mysteries that still had to be answered. And what the next move was after those answers were known.

‘Hopefully, we’ll get somewhere with the card,’ John mused as the buildings passed by. ‘Get in contact with whoever sent it, and see if they can help, or know anything. Then…’

‘Then’ was something John didn’t know. His life, at least the last half decade of it, had been defined by his withdrawn lifestyle, preferring games and fiction over interacting with his peers, not counting those met online. Now, he was actively helping someone to find the people who had killed her friends and family. People who had attacked him for some reason.

‘It’s been a crazy day,’ John finally thought, idly checking the time on his phone. ‘I’d just be getting out of school….’

The instant his phone’s time display shifted to the top of the hour, a sudden popup filled John’s vision.

Quest Complete - Enrolled Arcana
Identify the magicly aware population of the Academy. Forgot this Quest was still going on, didn’t ya?
Reward: 60 Exp.

John willed the reward screen away, frowning.

‘I did forget about that Quest,’ John thought, ‘but I didn’t see anyone with magic at school, did I? Aeolia shouldn’t count, right? If that’s true, then I Observed, what, two people with magic and didn’t know about it. Doesn’t that kinda defeat the purpose of the Quest?’

Let this be a lesson to you: Don’t expect things to be spelled out for you, or just handed out. And now to be utterly confusing, have a thematic gift.

Tinker’s Goggles added to Inventory

‘Getting some real mixed signals here,’ John thought as the godly message and reward notification faded away. ‘Still, not going to say no to a freebee. Kinda wish I could look at those goggles to see just what is so ‘thematic’ about them.’

John shifted in his seat, his thoughts drifting back to the issue of his next steps.

‘I don’t think I can stop following this path. I need to know what’s going on. Why all this is happening. And….’

His eyes snapped over to his bag and couldn’t help but to remember Aeolia struggling to maintain her composure in ruined remains of her guild’s central work area, and her somewhat frantic panic after he was knocked out.

He couldn’t lie to himself and say that having a woman pay attention to him wasn’t nice. Nor could he say he didn’t feel drawn to the size changing winged woman. There was just something about a woman who could kick his ass that appealed to him.

John pushed those thoughts aside. Even he knew it wasn’t the right time to entertain those possibilities. Not wanting to return to such heavy thoughts, John spent the remainder of the ride idly surfing the web, only stowing his phone once the bus neared his stop.

As the bus slowed to a stop, John carefully took his bag-turned-transport and stood to exit, slipping the bag over a shoulder as smoothly as possible.

The bus rumbled away and John started his short walk towards home, eyes darting about to see if anyone was near.

“Coast is clear,” John said, twisting his head towards the opened zipper of his bag. “Just got to walk a bit to get home.”

“When we get you linked up to the Auction,” Aeolia’s grumpy voice sounded from within the bag, “I’m looking up invisibility charms. I’m not supposed to be boxed in like this.”

“Won’t be long till you can stretch your wings,” John commented, cracking a smile. “Just wait for me to make sure my mom’s not home first.”

Aeolia made a sound, like she was about to say something but cut herself off after the first syllable and remained silent.

“You okay?” John asked, his steps slowing.

“I’m fine,” Aeolia answered quickly. “Just, you can move faster, you know.”

“Not going to be a problem,” John replied, rounding the corner of his street, the Newman residence coming into view, “almost there.”

A minute later, John reached his front door, finding it locked. A second and one set of keys extracted from his Inventory later, John stepped into his house.

“Hey Mom,” he called out, “I’m home!”

No response came, and Aeolia quickly exited from John’s bag, flying around the entryway before landing upon an end table, pushing her chest out as she arched her back in a stretch, the action drawing John’s eyes to her breasts.

“Not a bad place you got here,” Aeolia said as she finished her decompressive limbering.

“It’s okay I guess,” John said, quickly averting his eyes from her display. “Um, my computer’s up in my room... upstairs.”

“Lead the way,” Aeolia said, launching off the table and landing on John’s shoulder.

“Y-yeah,” John stuttered out, suddenly finding the reality of bringing a girl to his room, even if it was in a decidedly non sexual situation, daunting.

Still, he made his way up the stairs to his room without tripping over his feet and, thanking whatever gods were out there that he had left his room in a decent state, opened the door.

“So, uh, make yourself comfortable,” John said to Aeolia as he stood in the doorway, gesturing to the unmade bed, “It’ll take a minute to boot up the computer.”

Aeolia took up John’s offer and gracefully glided from his shoulder to the bed. John made his way to his desk and turned on his computer, keenly aware that Aeolia was surveying the room. A minute later and one password entered, John’s desktop faded into view.

After an embarrassing event when his mom had come across his opened room to see a scantily clad anime babe as his background, he had wisely changed it to a more ‘consertive’ option, one of an epic space battle. John swallowed nervously as he swore he could feel Aeolia’s eyes peering over his shoulder as he engaged his web browser, quickly closing his usual tabs and leaving open a blank one.

“All set,” John said, turning back towards Aeolia, who had watched him with intent eyes.

“No need to be so tense” she said, lifting off the bed to fly over to the computer desk.

“Tense?” John echoed, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’m not tense.”

“I could bounce a coin off your back,” Aeolia countered, giving John a critical look that softened before she continued. “You don’t have people come over that much, do you?”

“Not really,” John said bashfully, awkwardly shifting in place. “Look, we’ve got stuff to do, right? No point of wasting time with chit-chat.”

Aeolia cast a skeptical glance at John before shaking her head and turning to face the computer. “Alright, let’s do this.”

She began to hunt and peck at the keyboard, typing in an address. Before long, a simple webpage, all black save for a simple white circle with a pair of overlapping “A”s, one slightly to the left of the one behind it, contained within.

“Alright,” Aeolia said, moving away from the computer display, “place your hand in the circle.”

John skeptically stared at the screen then directed his gaze at Aeolia. “That’s it?”

“Yep,” Aeolia replied. “The website on the mundane end is, like, a doorman. A mundane typing in the address would reach this screen, and that’s it. Someone with Mana, like us, has to let a technomacer on their end record our aura so we can access the real site.”

“What is ‘aura’ anyway?” John asked, “Those curtains in your brother’s room were changing color because of our auras, but Observe didn’t explain it.”

“I really don’t know all the technical terms,” Aeolia started, her voice taking on a slightly exasperated tone, “but it’s kind of like an energy our souls give off. It’s not Mana, but it kind of is or it plays a part. Basic answer: it’s like a soul fingerprint. The technomancers can read it, so when you log in, it takes you to your account. And it’ll mark your computer as one of an Abyssal for quick and easy access.”

John nodded and moved his hand towards the screen. When his fingertips were nearly touching the screen, the white logo began to shift through the full rainbow before it disappeared, replaced with a simple message: “Welcome to the Abyss Auction!”

The screen changed once more, displaying one John was familiar with: a registration page.

“Thought you said my aura was what set my account?” John asked Aeolia, eyes shifting from the screen to her.

“Your aura doesn’t come with a username,” she responded with a shrug. “You can set your account later. We only started this so your computer would have that marker in case that card went looking for it. Pull it out so we can see what’s on it.”

“Right,” John said, pulling out the card from his Inventory. He gingerly held the tiny card and pressed the back to the screen.