And then Check'ing out

The wooden piece clicked as John set it down carefully on the board. Wesley frowned before adjusting his tactics, withdrawing his knight to free up a path for his bishop to menace John’s front line. “You said you didn’t play often?” the young man commented, eyes flicking up to John’s before dropping back to the board as John opted for the safe option of advancing a pawn down the flank.

They were technically in a tutorial lesson; however, as per usual, it was being treated as more of a chance for people to do whatever they wanted while the tutor had one to one talks with a handful of their classmates. Wesley had cornered John as soon as the session had started; while John had been planning on spending some more time reading his rituals book, the chance to try his hand against the tactician had proven too tempting to ignore.

Wednesday had so far proved to be a complete bust as far as anything interesting going on was concerned. John hadn’t seen hide nor hair of any of the more esoteric people that he knew attended Ashcroft - for whatever reason, they didn’t seem to share any classes with him today. Matilda hadn’t been around at lunch either, although that was unsurprising as he vaguely remembered her not usually working Wednesdays. On the plus side, the absence of any real significant things going on had allowed him to take the time to plan for…

“Check.” Wesley’s queen slid neatly behind three pawns and a knight to snare John’s castle, a direct shot at his king. The young man grinned as John’s thoughts snapped back to the chess board between them, all thoughts of planning for later that day scattering along with the battle tactics he’d been employing.

John found a move that’d keep him in the game a moment later, but for the next few minutes his focus was locked on the tiny grid of black and white squares; he’d grown complacent as it’d been a long time since he’d played a game of strategy against someone who could keep up - let alone come close to beating him. Even with his full focus, however, it wasn’t enough. “And that’s check, and mate. Good game,” Wesley said at last, looking up from the board and offering his hand for John to shake.

Wincing at the loss but trying to keep in mind that the blonde-haired man opposite was a good two levels higher than him and fully specialized into strategy, John reached across the board and took the offered hand. “Good game, Wes. I’ll get you next time, though, when I’m not distracted; got a lot on my mind at the moment.”

Wesley grinned back before glancing at the clock. “Don’t be so sure of that. Yes, you took me longer than most to beat our first time playing, but you’ve got plenty of weaknesses still to exploit. One more before the end of class?” At John’s answering nod, the pair began to reset the board, wood clicking neatly into place with rhythmic efficiency.

Another lost chess match, two hours and one very dull woodworking lecture where he had just about managed to not nail his shirt to anything later, John stepped out of the rear gate of the academy. Only a handful of his peers were leaving in this direction, mostly those who lived nearby, so it was quiet as he walked towards a different bus stop than usual. His aim was to head to the junkyard, see if he could find the barrier Flyx had mentioned, and do a quick scouting run to see what if any threats or possible sources of magical metal might be present. Unlike his previous trips out, however, he had actually thought through the dangers and planned ahead, and so his Inventory contained a few other things alongside his gathering bag and staff.

He’d emptied the bag out the previous evening, the enchanted wood and foliage now sitting in a plastic box under his bed. He was pretty sure it was a better idea to keep them in his Inventory - experiments with a cup of coffee and water from the fridge suggested that stored things didn’t change much if at all (the coffee had retained its heat all evening) but right now he wanted as much storage capacity as possible. He had no idea what he would find, nor in what quantities, and so on this scouting expedition he’d packed more or less light.

The bus dropped him off outside the junkyard almost thirty minutes later. Checking his watch and setting a reminder on his phone, John took a deep breath. He had about an hour and a half for this trip if he was to get back into town in time to catch the bus that’d get him home before his mom got worried. Stepping between two piles of twisted metal on the edge of the yard, he let his magic flow and shifted into the Barrier.

Looking around, John realized that this Barrier was far larger than even the one in the park - the weird oil-slick sky extending down much further away than he’d expected. The junkyard too seemed to be more expansive than it did in the real world, where he’d expect to see the road and the bus stop, instead there were yet more piles of rusted metal and twisted debris. Exhaling slowly, John pulled up his Inventory and began to switch to what he was considering his combat outfit for now. Smart Ashcroft blazer and suit trousers were out, light denim jeans and a leather jacket he’d bought on a whim a year ago were in. It wasn’t much, but it might stop minor scratches if there were any smaller pests in the vicinity. And at least it’d keep him from ripping holes in his academy uniform on all the metal detritus around.

Speaking of the detritus, John threw an Observe at it and frowned. “Rusty metal… that’s not helpful,” he muttered, pulling his staff from his Inventory and trying to decide in which direction to start looking. The piles of junk seemed to match those of the regular junkyard - or at least, the ones within its regular boundaries did, so with that in mind he opted to head in what he hoped would be the direction of the main office if that landmark existed here.

A clanging sound from up ahead - metal slowly striking metal - had him slow his pace, and he picked his way around the next towering heap of twisted cars and old refrigerators with care. A good thing too as on the far side stood a figure that made him back slowly away.

Thanking his luck that the thing was busy trying to rip the door off an old red chevvy truck - probably to wear as a shoulder pad to match the green one it was already wearing - John continued to retreat until he was around the corner, then sped up, darting back to the outskirts of the junkyard. As he ran, he spotted other things moving between the stacks - lower level junk trolls, and a handful of excessively large rats ranging from levels five through twelve. None of them seemed to notice him, thankfully, and so he made his way back to where he’d entered the barrier unmolested, albeit breathing hard from the exertion.

Pausing to catch his breath, he leaned on his staff. “Ok. So. Trolls, big trolls. Made of metal. Probably what I need,” he panted, wincing at a stitch in his side. “But too strong. Struggled with the dryadrones, and they were about my Level. Even going up to Level four, fighting something way above me is a stupid idea if I can avoid it. Options, need options…”

Checking his phone’s timer, he was glad to see that he still had an hour left. Things had been getting lower in Level the closer to the edge of the Barrier he got - maybe if he went into the stacks of junk beyond the boundaries of the real junkyard, he’d find low enough Level creatures that he could kill. Or, just maybe, a natural source of enchanted metal that didn’t need him to fight anything.

As it turned out, both of those things were technically true. Picking his way through the unfamiliar piles of trash, John paused to stare at the decapitated junk troll lying in front of him on the ground.

Freezing, John strained his ears. No sounds of fighting, okay, that was probably good. Crouching down carefully to inspect the wound, he realized that the creature had clearly been in a sword fight - and lost. The decapitating blow had gone straight through its core, two crystal halves protruding from each of the severed pieces of metal. ”Alright, sword-fighter. Not seen anything with any blade arms or swords, so probably human I guess? And not here right now, so might not mind if I scavenge their kill...” John’s thoughts tumbled over themselves as he tentatively pulled a cleaner looking piece of metal free from the troll’s body.

Grinning despite the potential danger of whoever had killed the thing, John tucked the Item into his Inventory and started prying the rest of the troll apart in search of more of the metal. Nearby, pale blue eyes watched him from the backseat of a Camaro halfway up one of the stacks of junk.

Rebecca had been having a bad day. Her attempts to find the remaining fragment of the sword had failed, utterly - she’d tracked a splinter of it to a desk in one of the theology classrooms, but while there was clear evidence of the rest of the metal being there at one point, it wasn’t there now. She’d debated asking Moira to use her connections at the academy to find out who usually sat at that desk, but the thought of reporting back to the Warden that she’d failed again and needed additional help made her stomach churn. If it’d been trouble, it would have been easy to follow Moira’s order, but this was just Rebecca being unable to succeed at her assigned task.

She’d done a little scouting, and had ascertained that the room in question had thankfully only been used for a handful of sessions between the point when the sword had been destroyed and when she’d traced the shard to the desk - with that in mind, she’d got a list of people it could potentially be. The issue was just that without the assistance of the Order’s connections at the academy, she was having to work her way through them gradually.

As Wednesdays had her independent study period in, she’d spent a chunk of the afternoon stomping around to people’s addresses, leaning on the wall outside each house and flat in turn to see if the pendant Moira had given her would do anything, with no success. So, as she regularly did when frustrated, she’d opted to head to one of the natural barriers to work out her stress against some of the monsters within. It wasn’t strictly speaking what she was supposed to do as a novice, but equally there weren’t any rules against it as a form of training. Now, however, she watched carefully as a young man she vaguely recognized from her class - and more importantly, had always believed to be mundane - slowly took apart the metal body of one of the trolls she’d let her frustrations out on. Her necklace didn’t react to his presence - but, if he was collecting bits of odd metal… As he stood and glanced around before sighing and exiting the barrier, she carefully pulled her phone from her pocket and checked the list of names she’d scribbled down in haste earlier. “So… John Newman, huh?” she said, moving his name to the top of her list of people still to investigate.