Something Rotten This Way Comes

Mark watched his boss carefully. That woman was dangerous in multiple ways, including her sex appeal. Tara seemed to know exactly how to dress to draw the eyes. Her bosom was straining the white button-up shirt and the cardigan did nothing to hide that fact, considering it was so open at the top with two buttons not fastened. It looked like if she tried, the buttons wouldn't last an hour. Her skirt both showed off and hid her ass, giving you an idea of its size while hiding exactly how large it really was. Then there was her face, soft features with freckles ranging from cleavage to forehead. Her eyes were a light shade of green to contrast her hair, somewhere between golden brown and orange that reminded Mark of cinnamon sticks or coffee with creamer. Her makeup only added to the appeal, though subtly. The mascara made her eyelashes more pronounced and her lipstick was a pale shade of pink that helped draw the eyes to her full lips.

All that sex appeal, however, was put on a woman that seemed to get off on whatever small torments she could inflict; assigning him extra work he arguably shouldn't be doing for his position, talking down to him like he was something lesser, dropping things off right at the end of the day that were in need of finishing before he could actually leave. That last one was made worse by the fact that she stayed nearby as he worked, hips swaying every time she took a step. The internal battles he'd had to wage just to keep his hand from smacking that derrière hard enough to echo throughout the office were numerous, fierce, and dangerously close each and every time.

Mark snapped out of his trance after a few seconds, realizing he'd been ogling his boss to her face for ten seconds or so, which caused her to cock one of her nearly trimmed eyebrows.

"Something to say, Mason? I'd love the excuse to send you anyways, you put just the right amount of creamer in. Why we have you doing office work when you're clearly more cut out to be my secretary is beyond me," she said, her tone was that of someone needing to state a fact that should have been obvious.

He shook his head, both to indicate the negative and to try and get the thoughts of grabbing her by the hair, finding a room, and spending as long as he was physically able trying to turn her into a quaking, quivering puddle out of his head. He couldn't be half that bold but he'd be damned if it wasn't something he desperately wanted. Seemed that morning ablution wasn't quite enough to satisfy, good as it felt.

"No ma'am. Just got lost in thought for a second is all. I'll be going now," he said before heading towards his desk. He stopped by a water fountain to get some cold water, having a small test in mind he could perform while getting through his work.

His desk was almost as sparsely decorated as his apartment. Like every morning, there was a stack of papers on his desk in need of processing into their system. Mark didn't know exactly why they still had to enter things in manually, but he'd heard something about older systems not being digitized, meaning a big part of his job was just reading reports and entering the data they contained. The saving grace was that the department manager, Tara's superior, believed that music and the like increased productivity.

He fished his headphones out of his pocket and took one of the wireless buds from its case. A quick flick of his Character Sheet was enough to prove that his experience this morning wasn't some half awake fantasy. He'd gotten to see more windows not a minute ago and he still needed the confirmation. With growing familiarity, he sent the cup of cold water into his inventory before starting up one of his audiobooks. Magical powers or not, he had bills and rent to pay.

The work was smooth and uneventful, save for Tara making a trip past his cubical and distracting him for a moment, clear until lunch. When he got settled in the breakroom after fetching some fast food from a place nearby, he pulled out the water to check on it. The liquid was just as cold as when he'd put it in there, incredibly useful. As for his food, it wasn't long for this world. Gone and devoured with ravenous hunger since the morning's sandwich had done little to sate his apatite. With his remaining time, he decided to use Observe on a few people in the breakroom to see if using it would cause it to level up. With only four uses of the skill, he got a mental ding and a small window appeared.

'I got XP from objects?' As he pondered that little mystery, he noticed a sort of notifications system, a small red dot on a bell icon at the edges of his vision. A bit of mental prodding got a window to pop out of it.

Mark looked at the window for a moment, surprised and taken aback by the quest. His cheeks were heating up just thinking about it. Some powerful being was going to reward him for fucking his boss, bonus points for anal. Even if there wasn't the promise of items and a full level's worth of XP, the idea of losing his virginity in such a way was enough to make him glad he was sitting at a table. He accepted the quest, thinking it could, at worst, be a long term project.

When he could get his libido back under control, he took a second to compartmentalize things. He had gained magic powers as a birthday gift from what could very easily be God herself, these powers told him things he had no way of knowing, he could put things into some kind of stasis, and his newest quest was asking him to get his boss to have sex. He'd been awake for five hours now and was more engaged than he'd been in the last month. This was something worth being excited about.

With his food done and his tests taken care of, it was unfortunately time to return to his desk and try and finish off the day's work. The audiobook was a big help, as usual, and without the intervention of Tara adding to his work load, he was able to get done on time. It was a small blessing to be able to leave before the sun sets. As he was leaving, something jumped to the front of his mind. Tara had been the only person who remembered his birthday. No one else he chatted with had said anything about it. Mark wasn't sure if that said more about him, Tara, or everyone else in the office. At least she was relatively nice to him today, snide comments aside. An odd but not unwelcome change.

Taking the bus home to get changed seemed like a bit of a distasteful option after this morning, instead leading to him trying to jog his way home. It was far from pretty but it certainly felt good to be moving. As he went about his way, he used Observe on people, figuring wasting mana regen wasn't a great idea in the early stages. As he used the ability, he tried to focus on how it made him feel, trying to understand the flow of his mana.

There weren't any interesting results so far as he could tell, but it did serve to get a better baseline. It seemed most everyone around him was between level 6 and level 8. That girl he seen before work had been an outlier of some kind, even if he didn't know how levels were calculated.

'Her title was Apprentice, wasn't it? Maybe she's that high a level because she's skilled at what she does. Could also be trauma related.'

Until he had more information, there weren't any conclusions he could come to about that fact. For now, he'd try and manipulate his mana.

The pace of his jog slowed until it was more of a power walk as Mark tried to get a grip on his own mana. It was like trying to flex a muscle you didn't know was there. His focus slowly shifted from his walking to the inward exploration, culminating in an uncomfortable feeling spreading through his body.

The closest thing Mark could compare this feeling to was the time he'd gotten curious and ate mint and a jalapeño at the same time. Ice filled his veins while fire streaked though them. It was a feeling of power, unrefined and brimming with potential.

Mark stared at the window for a second, a mixture of surprise and confusion swimming in his mind. He hadn't even gotten a chance to look at the other options before it auto selected Air Alignment. Tapping on Air Alignment brought up a full window, rather than the tool tip he'd expected.

'Ah, Agility boost. Probably why it auto-picked that honestly. Still would have been nice to have the option, but I guess I shouldn't complain about magic powers...'

Retracing his mental path, he tried to rekindle the feeling of using his Mana. It was far easier now that he knew what to look for, as well as being far less uncomfortable. Instead of equal parts blizzard and inferno, it was more like water that felt both cold and hot. The opposite feelings not canceling out was messing with his head, but at least he could get used to this level of paradox.

He tried to feel out how to activate Elemental Tap now that the Mana was flowing through him, focusing on the idea of the skill in his mind. That seemed to be enough, as he felt a very slight increase in his speed. If he needed any further proof, his Mana bar started draining slowly and an icon appeared below it. Activating the skill made the sensation in his veins change, now it was simply slightly cooler. While he'd love to explore why he was experiencing all this and how it related to the skill, he didn't have anything to compare it against. And besides, his apartment was right around the corner.

After dipping inside long enough to change into sweatpants with a t-shirt and simple jacket, he was right back outside and headed for the beach. One of the few nice things about living in Darien was how quickly he could get to the coast. By the time he got there, the sun had just finished its journey below the horizon. The beach was lit by fading sunlight and the street lamps. The air felt good, considering it was December now. It was on the colder end of his comfort zone but the jacket and exercise did a great job keeping him warm.

The movement felt good. He wasn't used to it so his body protested, but simple act of moving with purpose had him feeling alive. He was so lost in the moment that he almost didn't notice there was someone else on the beach, off to his left and closer to the water. He almost missed her behind the rock formation jutting out of the sand. Her hands were raised up towards the sky, green hair gently moving in the breeze as she faced away from him. The breeze ceased and her hair fell to her shoulders as the world took on a more muted tone around him.

You have been pulled into a Grave Zone. Obtain the Keeper's permission to leave or take control.

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