Of the Hedgehog's Dilemma

John groaned as light began to filter through his window. He rolled over and tried to resist waking up, but it was too late, the battle was lost. His mind was already beginning to race, a catchy song started in the back of his head, and he remembered his plans for the day.

The Gamer's eyes opened and he brought his hands up to wipe the sand from them. He flexed and shivered under the covers. Then, he opened his inventory just to make sure he hadn’t dreamed it all up.

’Plans for the day…’ he thought, his brain beginning to work. ’Better make sure I’m ready.’

The Gamer rolled back over and checked his phone. He was up early by nearly an hour, which he normally hated. That was valuable sleep time he was giving up. Today, though, his mind was already too wired to try and dive back into the land of sleep.

He still started with his normal routine of checking his messages and emails, but it seemed slightly surreal to be looking at gaming news after the events of the previous evening.

John sat up and stretched, popping a few of his joints before finally standing up. He opened a game on his phone while he pulled out a uniform for the day, idly completing dailies for a few minutes before mustering the desire to leave his room.

’Feels nice to just do something inconsequential for a minute,’ he thought, smiling. ’New banner is out later this week. I might need to stop by a bank to put cash in ahead of it… I should have tested that last night.’

John took a minute to figure out how to use his interface to dispense his money back out before moving on.

With that, The Gamer took some time to finish cleaning himself up and getting ready for the day. As he was thinking about the rest of his morning, he realized that, if he left a little early, he could avoid the bus entirely, and just walk to school.

’Which means I might get to try some magic practice on the way,’ The Gamer reasoned, heading downstairs. ’Maybe I ought to get more practice with ice, see how that affects the [Ice Surge] gem.’

At the bottom of the stairs, he found that his mother hadn’t finished her own morning routine. He’d gotten moving before breakfast had even been started.

“Morning Mom!” John said, calling towards the master bedroom, where the sound of a hairdryer betrayed that Brenda was finishing up.

“Oh!” Brenda exclaimed, calling back. “You’re up early, sweetie!”

“Yeah. Haha. I went to sleep super early last night!” He chuckled lightly, walking into the kitchen. “Guess I needed the rest.”

“You sure must have, you were out before I even got home,” she sang back, walking out of her bedroom dressed for the day. “Since you’re here anyway, would you mind helping with breakfast?”

John smiled back. “Yeah, of course.”

And so the Newman duo set to making their morning meal together. John tried cooking (but mostly ended up burning) the eggs while his mother prepared sausages, biscuits, and gravy. After some fun cooking together, they set out serving plates on the dining room table and sat down to eat. As John was generously pouring gravy over his plate, his mother looked at him with a slightly quizzical look.

“You know, honey, did you do something different this morning?” she asked, reaching for the plate of eggs.

“Um… Besides actually waking myself up?” John paused, smiling. “I don’t think so? I guess I got a bit more sleep? Maybe I ran my hand through my hair?”

“You must have really needed the rest.” She giggled. “You look good.”

John smiled at her. “Thanks, Mom.”

He opened his own character sheet again and stared at the image of himself present, but he couldn’t see anything special going on. After a few minutes of thought, wondering if the Charisma had done something, he just brushed it off and returned to his food.

“You going to be working late today, Mom?” John asked, finishing his plate.

She sighed. “I might be. Don’t know yet. Sorry, John, we just have a lot going on currently.”

“It’s fine, Mom,” he replied. “Sometimes work happens.”

John picked up the plates off the table and brought them to the sink, where he rinsed them off and put them in the dishwasher.

“I might actually go ahead and walk this morning,” he said, as his mother walked around the house gathering her things. “I, uh, wanna stop by the card shop for a minute before school.”

“Are you spending money you don’t have again?” Brenda chastised, giving John a serious look for a moment. “John?”

“No, Mom, I promise. I’m being careful.”

“Alright. I trust you,” she said, her expression softening. “You know I worry.”

’Hopefully won’t be a problem anymore,’ he thought, glancing at the money in his inventory. ’That’s probably dangerous thinking though. I could definitely blow this all in a day for some card packs or waifu.’

He waved at his mother as she headed towards the door. “Love you, Mom.”

“You too, sweetie. Have a nice day,” she responded, before grabbing her purse and departing for the day.

“Have a nice day!” John called out after her.

’She’s always in a rush… I should find a way to excuse some of this money so I can pay her back a bit,’ John sighed, thinking to himself. ’I need to make sure I can do this consistently before I get any big ideas though.’

He packed a few slices of pizza in a ziploc and stored them away as nourishment for the day. Resolved to figure things out, The Gamer rushed upstairs and grabbed his bag and uniform jacket, and headed out shortly after his mother.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The walk to school flew by for John once more. The day was chillier than normal, the final gasps of winter back for another pass before yielding to spring. John didn’t mind though, his school jacket was warm enough for weather like this, and it made it simpler for him to practice with his [Reshape Matter].

Most of the walk, he’d been focussed heavily on condensing and freezing water around the sidewalks, hoping to gain even the slightest increase in ability, though he wasn’t hopeful by the end. Even though his independent casting was improving, nothing changed at all with his gem.

It seemed as though, for all the power being a game character had given him, he was also limited by his own numbers. Unless a system responded to his actions, he wasn’t going to change things entirely on his own.

’And [Reshape Matter] seems like one of those skills that is going to take FOREVER to get leveled. Hopefully that means the levels are going to be juicy. It’s close to a third now, I guess… When did it get the big jump? Was it the fighting? The practice?’

Pondering his progress, John turned back to the road in front of him, trying to work on channeling his spell without having to look at and singularly focus on it.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As The Gamer finished his journey to school, he began to mentally prepare for his plan.

’What the heck am I actually supposed to say? “Hey, I woke up with magic yesterday, and my one scrying ability that I was totally using to spy on you told me you have magic too!” Nice conversation starter, John,’ he thought, crossing the threshold of Ashcroft’s campus. ’I don’t even know what I’m trying to ask her yet.’

John started down the halls of the building, having passed the spots where the buses would unload their students when they arrived in a few minutes. He began to doubt his plan and he worked through the halls and got ready for his first class, the rest of the student body erupting into the hallway around him.

’’’Hey, you wanna do a potentially life threatening magic dungeon with me?’’’ he asked himself, smiling at the absurdity of it. ’Yeah, maybe don’t lead with that. Hopefully I can at least get some pointers on how this whole magic thing is supposed to work. I’d rather not do another dungeon alone.’

John snapped out of his reverie to realize that he’d arrived at the biology room.

“And I still have school to deal with…” he mumbled to himself, walking in.

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John was severely distracted for most of the morning, only barely flying underneath teacher scrutiny for his absentmindedness. Luckily, he wasn’t normally a troublemaker, and none of the instructors overly scrutinized him. The time in class surrounded by his peers had given him a chance to restore [Observe] to its previous level as well, spamming it on everything he could.

Now, The Gamer found himself standing anxiously outside the library, working up the nerve to enter.

He peered in the window, spying Ela and the old librarian talking as they organized a couple shelves. Swallowing, he opened the door and headed in, trying to seem less terrified than he was.

As he entered, the kind librarian, Ms. Amara, looked over and smiled, before returning to her conversation. Following her gaze, Ela looked over and spotted him, also offering a smile and a small wave.

’She really is cut out to work here,’ John commented internally. ’She’s already got a librarian vibe going on.’

John tried his best to seem nonchalant as he approached, but, unbeknownst to him, he was actually being extremely conspicuous. Ela looked over and giggled at John’s poorly acted display of looking through the sci-fi section. His eyes flickered over to her every few seconds, and he was visibly shifting and anxious. The blonde exchanged a brief few words with the librarian, before the elder lady retreated to the back of the library to fetch something.

“Did you need something, John?” she sang with a smile, walking up behind him.

The Gamer startled, and his heart jumped into his throat. Trying not to **** on his own spit, John turned around and **** a smile.

“Uh, yeah, sorry,” he coughed out. “Am I being a bother?”

“Not quite, no, but it does seem like something is wrong,” the blonde beauty replied, her eyes boring into him. “Are you alright?”

“I… yeah, I’m alright… I think, but I really needed to talk to you. It’s…” John struggled to find the words. “Important? I guess.”

She leaned back slightly, with an incredulous look on her face.

“Are you going to ask me out?” Ela smiled, teasingly. “I have not even known you for a day yet.”

John flushed at the notion. All sorts of dirty thoughts about him and the buxom woman in front of him ran through his head at light speed. He tried to hold back his elevator eyes, the image of her pantyhose-clad thighs at the front of his mind. John sputtered something incomprehensible as Ela’s words obliterated his hopes of sticking to a quick script.

He took a moment’s pause and a deep breath, trying to recapture the words he needed. He opened his eyes and met hers. The faint lines of a smile still framed her face, and there was mirth in her pretty blue eyes.

As seriously as he could make it sound, John said to her, “I woke up yesterday with magic powers.”

She seemed taken aback at first, but John persisted.

“I’m serious. And some really crazy stuff happened, and I just don’t know who to talk to about it.” He glanced around for a second, then brought his hands up in front of him, channeling a small amount of mana. “Look, I can sho–”

She grabbed his hand, painfully, and John flinched.

“Ow!”

“Not here,” she whispered. John met her eyes again as his small channeling of air dissipated - they were flat and stern. Her serious tone caught him off guard. “Go upstairs to the room we were in yesterday. I will be there in a minute. Let me tell Miss Amara that I need some time.”

“Uh… sure?” John said, nodding.

She stepped aside and let him pass, watching him as he headed up the stairs before turning to seek the librarian on her own.

’That’s a little concerning,’ John thought, slightly on edge from the encounter. ’I’m not THAT bad at talking to people, am I?’

You kinda are.

’OK, fair enough, but wouldn’t she have, like, told me to go away or something then, if that was it? I dunno, this is hard.’

He sighed, entering the room. “Seriously though, what’s going on?”

John waited anxiously for a couple minutes in the library computer room. He took to reading every single title on the movie shelf to pass the time and keep his mind off what was going on. He didn’t make it more than a couple rows before Ela finally joined him.

As she entered the room, John went to say something, but faltered as his stomach lurched. He looked around, confused, as his stomach’s flips cleared Olympic gold. They were still in the room, but it wasn’t the room. It took John a second to realize that the feeling he’d gotten was the same as when he’d used his dungeon skill.

Everything was frozen, but slightly off from where it had been before. A deafening silence overtook the two, only broken by Ela’s footsteps as she crossed the room.

A red exclamation point popped up in his notifications, and John opened it quickly.

You have been pulled into a barrier!

’There’s that word again. That’s probably not good. NOW where am I?’

Ela’s expression was serious as she crossed the room; her blue eyes focused on him. She seemed to play absentmindedly with a scrunchie on her wrist, closing the distance with haste.

“Oh hey, what just happened?” he asked, nervously, as she closed the distance. “E-Ela?”

Something seemed off to John, and he stepped back slightly. A shiver shot down his spine as she came to a stop in front of him.

Her eyes narrowed, and she looked at him strangely. “You… who are you?”

“Uh… What?” John asked, confused. “Whaddya mean? It’s me, John, from yesterday? John Newman, random nerd? Alchemy book guy? Still totally convinced DS1 is better than Bloodborne.”

He tried to put up the most genuine smile he could, while her gaze cut through him. John started sweating, and he could feel the first drop start rolling down his face. Every awful possibility began to run through the nervous nerd’s mind, and he started analyzing the room for combat.

“Ahem,” she cleared her throat, leaning back from her imposing posture, “I believe I owe you an apology then, John Newman. Sorry for all of this.”

It was John’s turn to be confused at the sudden about face. The pressure around him seemed to dissipate, but he was still uneasy. He was sure that she’d been about to do something, but now her entire stance was flipped. Briefly considering his options, John chose to try and roll with it.

Trying to keep a relieved smile on his face, John asked, “Yeah, no problem, but, uh, what is going on here? You lost me, like, ten steps ago. I kinda feel like something was about to happen there, but I’m not sure, maybe I’m crazy.”

Ela flushed slightly.

“The world of magic is a dangerous place,” she said in soft tones. “I had been warned yesterday that someone was casting spying spells around campus, so I was prepared for the worst. I am sorry.”

John paled a little as he thought about that.

“Uh… that might be on me, actually. The first ability I got was a spell that lets me look at things closely to find out details,” John admitted, scratching the back of his neck. “Spent a lot of time yesterday throwing spells around.”

“You are lucky, then, that you did not attract the wrong kind of attention already. There are those that might have killed you for even attempting that,” she replied. “Even some at this school.”

John swallowed. “Um… what? Why?”

“To many, your spells would have been taken as either a sign of disrespect or a preparation to attack,” she answered, her tone deadly serious. “And people are cruel and vengeful. With no one to protect you, your life might have been forfeit, if not worse.”

John stopped to take that in. ’Worse?’

He looked into her eyes to search for any sign of deception or sarcasm and found none.

She interrupted his train of thought, “It is also very rare for a mundane human to awaken magical abilities, as you claim to have. What exactly happened to you yesterday?”

“That’s a long-ish story,” John started. “It all began when I woke up with a quest.”

“A… quest?”

“Yes. Exactly what you’re thinking,” John said, looking around at his UI. “Hold on, I think there was a party button around here somewhere…”

After a few seconds of looking around, The Gamer managed to remember where the plus sign for “add to party” was, and tapped on it. A small window opened in front of him, though the only option on it was Ela.

’I wonder how it determines the options?’ he idly wondered, tapping her name. ’Is there a specific range? Does it know what I want?’

John looked up from his musings to watch Ela tap a window in front of her, a quizzical look adorning her cute features. Her eyes began to dart around at the same time that The Gamer’s UI flashed happy colors.

A small chime played as Ela’s name appeared beneath John’s mana bar in a flourish of animation with her own little health and mana bars following suit. The blonde beauty in front of John was momentarily outlined in blue and her nameplate grew in size, thin lines of red and blue appearing underneath it over her head.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, staring above his head.

"You can see that?"

"You have a health bar!"

“Yeah. It’s a little trippy at first.” John laughed.

“I have a health bar!”