Angling for Abyssals

Time to hunt. Or sleuth. Or at least spam Observe till the cows came home. In retrospect, he should probably have made some sort of plan on the bus instead of goofing with SirCumference, but that was hard to change now.

As it were, he just threw the spell at everyone who didn’t already have their RP displayed over their head. By the time he reached business class, that had yielded nothing that stood out. Against stereotype wisdom, even the janitor’s Observe data looked perfectly normal.

The textbook that Mr. Oliveira handed out didn’t come with a prompt to learn it through John’s power. This was simultaneously disappointing and a relief. On one hand, getting new Skills was too valuable to pass up, and getting practically guaranteed good grades in the class without having to pay attention was some nice gravy.

On the other hand, there were only so many books that could turn out blank in his vicinity before it grew suspicious, so not having those opportunities bundle up too much was good.

As it stood, John largely zoned out from his class in order to consider his Quest instead. Business class wasn’t in the ‘effortless A’ category the way a few of his other classes were, but it was still one he could pass with minimal effort.

The thing about the Quest was that spamming Observe wasn’t a bad thing to do, but if that was all he did, completing it was essentially left to chance. It would be much better if he could figure out some sort of criteria to focus his efforts, so he could at least go spam the skill in places where he was likely to find other Abyssals.

First step to that was considering what kinds of Abyssals might be at the school. First off, non-human Abyssals who didn’t have the means to hide their fantastical traits were obviously out. Even ones that did have those means would need a disguise that was hard to ruin and easy to re-establish, or going would still be a serious risk.

Additionally, a non-human Abyssal would likely face some unique difficulties in social relationships since having mundane friends visit their home would likely be somewhere between difficult and impossible. Depending on the needs of their disguise or their nature, visiting mundane friends might also be difficult or even impossible.

Both of those concerns could be mitigated significantly by minimizing close contact with mundanes. Which, in turn, John could think of two ways to accomplish. One was being a loner without being a bullying target, and the other was cliques of Abyssals.

Since cliques of Abyssals would be tied together by circumstance rather than shared interests, they would probably default to being more varied than mundane cliques. Compensating for that seemed, to John, like the kind of thing that was hard to do without it seeming fake.

So for non-human Abyssal students, his ‘leads’ were people who were loners by choice, cliques that were unusually varied and cliques that seemed artificially or excessively homogenized.

Human Abyssals were a tougher nut to crack. They might have some of the same social difficulties as non-humans, but they would probably be a lot easier to work around since mundane attention itself wouldn’t be a threat to anyone’s life.

On the flip side, human Abyssals that were trying to avoid notice by other Abyssals, like himself, would probably want to disappear in the crowd. The best way to do that was to find an unassuming clique somewhere in the middle of the social hierarchy and keep your head down. Which took John right back to ‘Observe everyone and pray’.

Finding Abyssal staff was another kettle of fish entirely. It wasn’t hard for John to imagine how mundane schooling could be useful to Abyssals. Aside from being able to fit into mundane society, John getting Biomancy and Low Alchemy from mundane textbooks strongly suggested that those magical disciplines were interlinked with mundane knowledge and that was probably not a unique situation.

The staff, however, didn’t get knowledge out of coming here, they got a paycheck. And based on the prices on the Abyss Auction, it wouldn’t get them very far. Sure, Ashcroft was a prestigious and well funded school, but John still couldn’t imagine it would pay regular teachers enough for the Abyssal economy, much less stuff like janitors.

So if there was Abyssal staff, and the quest seemed to imply so, they had to be here for a different reason. From what Qhila had said about the Abyss, leisure was probably not it. It hadn’t sounded like many Abyssals would be able to afford spending hours every day pursuing a passion for teaching mundane civics, or whatever, instead of putting that time towards something that secured their safety.

The bit about civics sent John off on a small tangent about how hard it was to imagine his civics teacher, Mrs. Wentworth, doing anything at all for fun. After a few minutes down that road, he caught himself and corralled his thoughts back towards something useful.

Unfortunately, the only thing John could think of that an Abyssal person might work at Ashcroft for was trying to look like a mundane, and thus avoid attention from other Abyssals. Which would be best served by being unassuming, bringing him straight back to ‘Observe everyone and pray’. Again.

At this point, another possibility dawned on John. Maybe, Ashcroft Academy had an Abyssal side, complete with a student body and teachers pursuing Abyssal classes hidden in barriers on the grounds. The Quest line could be about getting involved with that, if it existed. That would definitely be something worth a quest line.

Problem with that was that there was no telling how separate the Abyssal and mundane parts of the academy were, in that case. If things were heavily intermingled, and Abyssal students had a mix of mundane and Abyssal classes, then random spamming of Observe should hit one sooner or later. He might already have hit a few yesterday, even.

But it could also be heavily separated, say with Abyssal students and staff just coming to the location and entering an Academy Barrier, then spending all of the school day in it. If that were the case, John’s window of opportunity to find an Abyssal was a lot smaller. He basically had to catch them either arriving or leaving.

At least some of them would probably use the Barrier Alleys to get around. Actually, now that he thought about it, that would be true no matter if there was an Abyssal Ashcroft or just Abyssals in the school for other reasons. So, he should probably see if Abysspedia/the Librarian website had the locations of the Barrier Alley entry points and pay extra attention to people heading in that direction in any case.

At this point, John’s pondering was interrupted by his own bad timing. Specifically, he drew attention via failure to stifle a yawn just after the teacher had asked a question. Mr. Oliviera evidently decided that was good enough as far as indicating went, as he insisted John answer said question.

Luckily, it wasn’t a terribly hard one once he had gotten the teacher to repeat it and taken a moment to think. Luckily times two, being brought back to reality made him notice that he was sitting on a full MP bar and wasting regen again. Randomly selecting his arm strength by way of target, he cast Enhance Muscle for the Skill EXP.

He managed to think up no further revelations on the ‘find Abyssals’ issue, other than that a look at the school’s records would be useful, and once he noticed that he was thinking in circles, he put it aside for the time being and started paying a modicum of attention to the class. Mostly though, he zoned out.

Leaving class, he revisited his conclusions about where to look for Abyssals. There unfortunately were a lot of unactionable considerations, and a lot of hypotheticals he could go on if he did find Abyssals pointing in that direction. What he had right now was the same list of loners, odd cliques and luck.

Halfway from business class to math, John got a chance to Observe someone who more or less fit the non-outcast loner criteria. The criteria were also completely unnecessary to make her a high-priority target, though, considering that her class and title were both practically screaming ‘fantasy game’ and her level was the highest John had seen by a significant margin.

Moira Brighton
Lvl 22 Paladin
Warden In Training
Age 19
RP -10

Quest Completed: Abysscroft I
Objective: Discover another Abyssal among the students and staff of Ashcroft Academy.
Reward: 100 EXP, 50 $, Abysscroft II Quest.

New Quest: Abysscroft II
Objective: Discover as many Abyssals among the students and staff of Ashcroft as you can before the end of the school day.
Abyssals discovered: 1
Reward: 50 EXP and 25$ per discovered individual, 1 free skill level per 5 discovered individuals, 1 free stat point per 5 discovered individuals, 1 perk point per 10 discovered individuals, 1 legendary item if you find all Abyssals at Ashcroft within the time limit.
Quest accepted automatically.

By the time John had gotten through the popups, Moira had vanished from view. Whether it was into a classroom or down a side hallway, he had no idea. He wasn’t sure he would’ve approached her now even if he had had the option though.

It wasn’t for lack of desire to get closer to the gorgeous, redheaded student council president, nor was he worried about the things Qhila had told him to be wary of. Based on her class, she was probably the exception to the rule of assuming ill intent until proven otherwise.

The issue was in her reputation. In addition to maintaining an aloof distance to her fellow students, Moira had a reputation as a strict disciplinarian and an exceedingly serious student with a spotless attendance record and report card. Running the risk of making her late to class, by interrupting her on the way to one, seemed like a surefire way to get on her bad side.

On the Quest side of things, this looked great. The rewards ranged from good for a few discoveries to an absolute gravy train. On the information side of things, it all but confirmed at least 11 Abyssals, and strongly suggested at least 20. If he had to think of a downside to it, it was the apparent absence of an Abysscroft III Quest, but whatever.

John found no more Abyssals on his way to math class, nor were any of the others in that class Abyssal. The start of the class itself brought something else of note, though, when he got his textbook for the semester.

Skill Book.
Learn Mathematics 101?
Yes | No

After a moment of consideration, John decided to go for it. Memorizing the mundane content of the book wasn’t a big draw since math had always come easily to John, but learning more magical disciplines was priceless.

He’d just have to deal with the suddenly blank book somehow. If all else failed, he could buy a new one. With the rate of earning money from Quests he’d seen so far, it should be easy enough to save that up.

Error: Academic Capacity exceeded.
Raise INT or forget one of the listed skills and all skills branching from it in order to learn Arithmancy [Root]
Forget Low Alchemy [Root]
Forget Biomancy [Root]
Abort

John selected ‘Abort’ with a frown. That there was a cap should, in retrospect, not have come as a surprise. He sure would have liked to have known ahead of time, though, or have an idea about how much he would have to raise INT to get another ‘slot’.

In any case, he wasn’t about to replace his current Root Skills for Arithmancy. For one, he had already put some effort into leveling them. He also had some idea about what they could do, while he had no clue whatsoever of what this new magical discipline was about. Lastly, he had already spotted some synergies between Low Alchemy and Biomancy and given how interlinked biology and chemistry were, he felt pretty certain more were going to turn up.

The good news was that aborting the process meant the book wasn’t erased. Having to buy a new one despite having gotten nothing from it would have made him a tad salty.

With that finished, and math firmly lodged in the ‘Minimum Effort A’ category, he didn’t have much more to do in class. That left him somewhere between zoning out, letting his brain go in the circles he had stopped himself from during business class, and keeping enough of an eye on his MP to do training casts of Enhance Muscle just before his bar maxed out.

Around the halfway point of the class, John realized he’d been a moron and only barely managed to restrain himself from slapping his forehead.

Right outside the classroom window lay the outdoor running track, along with a few other facilities for outdoors athletics. Facilities that were currently in use by a second year PE class, populated almost exclusively by people he hadn’t Observed yet.

John immediately set about rectifying this. The first handful of people passing by the window were, as best he could tell, mundane. However, when a brief lull in runners provided the chance to check the assistant coach he got a hit.

Robin Sharpe
Lvl 16 Gravimancer
Beef Appreciator
21 years
RP: 1

The guy himself was a black guy with a short afro and side-cuts, and a body language that suggested his approach to coaching was encouragement and playful goading. Since Coach Conroy used the drill sergeant method, John strongly considered trying to get switched to a PE class under the other PE teacher, whom this guy was assisting. Getting closer to an Abyssal that John knew nothing about might not be the wisest course of action, though.

Mind going off on the tangent of weighing for and against trying to make that switch, John would’ve probably missed a few runners passing the window if the next person to pass by hadn’t reminded him of the Quest, purely by virtue of being none other than Moira.

Since she normally wore the most conservative possible configuration of the female school uniform, the sports clothes she was wearing now revealed a good bit more of her figure. In addition to permitting John a more precisely informed appreciation of her ample feminine curves, this also revealed that beneath the posh exterior was an extraordinarily fit young woman.

Hot on her heels was a less curvy but equally athletic girl. One whose title, class and level practically begged for an Observe in their own right, though John didn’t actually notice this until after using the skill.

Kim Moon
Lvl 21 Slayer
The Silver Crane of the North
19 years
RP: -8

John’s tastes generally leaned towards the curvy end of the spectrum of female body types. Still, even the fairly brief look he got was enough to firmly place Kim’s lithe, slim form in the ‘sexy’ category. It also seemed to John like she and Moira had some competition vibes going on, at least as far as the running was concerned.

No more Abyssals turned up during the rest of the class. He did max out Skill EXP in Enhance Muscle though. It didn’t level up, since it was capped by the Skill Level of Biomancy, but presumably it would as soon as he leveled the latter. Which was currently around three quarters full and unfortunately didn’t progress any further from another cast of Enhance Muscle.

All of five steps outside of class, however, he got a completely novel Observe result. He probably should have expected that something would be different, but the text above Mrs. Wentworth’s head being partially garbled took a moment too long to register.

Victoria Wentworth
Level ☠ Human ?????
[The S̵̡̥̃?̶̝̜͐á̵̫͍ṟ̶̭͉͉͉̼̤͂̌͑͜͝╫̸̧̨̢̱̼͚̑͛͘▐̶̡̥̿̐t̴͇̖̯̹͙͔͋́̽͂̓̕͝ Witch>

Error: Observe blocked by target

Skill Quest Completed:
???? 0/?? -> Have Observe blocked 1/1
Didn’t think that could happen, did you?
Reward: 1 Observe skill level

Skill Level Up: Observe Lvl 6
Additional information is now revealed.

You have been pulled into a Trap Barrier. Seize control of the barrier or receive permission in order to be able to leave.

****