Camping!

The plan was as follows: Instead of keeping on pending between their individual homes they would stay inside the forest and camp inside an Illusion Barrier over the weekend. That way they wouldn’t have to spend time travelling, meeting up and all that other nonsense. In order to make this endeavour bearable John had filled his backpack with canned food and, together with a tent that Rave gave him, threw it into his inventory. The tent was pretty interesting by the way.

While it was folded the tent looked like a normal pop-up tent so the thought of a bed and a kitchen being inside there were confusing to say the least. How would the kitchen even be useful? Not like there was electricity just lying around in the forest.

“How did ya ma react to all of this?” Rave asked when they entered the forest, the sun above them hadn’t even reached its peak yet. “She said she was happy that I was out there with a girl for a change.” John admitted, curiously he added, “What about your mother? Didn’t hear anything about her, ever.” “’Cause I don’t like to talk about her. My parents divorced three years ago. It wasn’t a pretty scene.” Despite the rather depressing content of her words Rave stayed jolly. “Oh, well, I am sorry for that.” “Nah, she is in Denmark, no worries.” Rave said and smiled at him as she readjusted the bag over her shoulder. The spare clothes hadn’t fit into his inventory and Rave insisted that she should carry something. Seeing that she was actually a lot stronger than him on a Stat Level he wasn’t complaining.

When they arrived in the forest Rave spent about ten minutes to find a point that was big enough to put the tent up. When she finally did find such a spot she turned to John. “Okay, open a very small Illusion Barrier here.” She instructed. “Wait, there are varying sizes?” He asked, confused. “Oh, right, ya don’t know that, Johny. Yeah, Protected Spaces can range from covering very small spaces to whole cities. Of course, making bigger ones is a bit more problematic.” “Why not make a normal sized one?” “Cause, ya noob, I don’t want the space that I sleep in and the one filled with Ghosts to overlap. If you overlap Illusion Barriers without precautions they fuse together or some other stuff happens and neither you nor I can take these precautions.” John nodded to show he understood. If the Barrier was too big Ghosts could attack them while they slept. Worse yet, they would damage the tent and John wasn’t willing to piss of Regan. So, if he made the I.D. small enough they could just put up the one with the Ghosts a bit away and all would be dandy.

“I will try then.” John said and activated the skill while trying his best to concentrate only on the direct surroundings. As he found out, having a higher Intellect and Wisdom made concentrating way easier. The I.D. went up and Rave entered with him. The pink-haired girl walked around for a bit and finally stopped. “Nice work, tiger.” She complimented and turned to John. He was slightly confused. “how do you know I succeeded?” He asked. “Cause the wall is right there.”

Wall? What wall? John got over to her side and pushed out his hand. He met a layer of solid air. Well, maybe that wasn’t the best way to put it. There was just something there that made it exceedingly hard to move, like pushing two magnets together at the same poles. John took a step back. “Never noticed that before.” He admitted. “Mhm, better tell you something then while we are at it: There are three ways to escape an Illusion Barrier that wants to keep you locked up.”

Rave raised a finger. “One, defeat whoever is inside. If the Illusion Barrier has no ‘owner’ it becomes non-hostile towards anyone inside. Of course, if you just beat the guy currently in control somebody else can take over too and fighting large groups, such as guilds, can be very exhausting.” She raised three fingers. “B, you can use your magic to overpower their control on the barrier and escape that way. I think that is your Escape I.D. skill.” Certainly, sounded like it. Rave clapped her hands, “For everyone else there is the way of brute forcing your way out.” She summoned her aura and took a swing at the invisible wall. Her fist penetrated the barrier and cracks spread from the impact point through the air. “This is very hard to do, especially in stronger Illusion Barriers. Not everyone is a mage though so this is a last resort for physical fighters.” She said and pulled her fist back. The cracks closed slowly from the outliers inwards.

“Understood.” John put an end to that bit of exposition with him pulling out the dark green tent. “So, how does this work?” He said while looking at the still zipped thing in his hand. It was a circle of maybe half a metre diameter and there was supposed to be a kitchen in there? He could cut his consciousness in two so maybe that wasn’t the weirdest thing. Actually, he had an inventory that was pretty much the same thing so if he calmly thought about it, it wasn’t weird at all. Applying his new standards anyway.

“Just put it on the ground there and take a few steps back.” Rave said and pointed at an empty place with relatively even ground between a few trees. John did as he was told and then Rave pulled out a piece of paper and unfolded it. It looked like the words smallest manual. “So, to unfold…” She mumbled and read the contents. “Ah, there it is.” She cleared her throat and in an overly dramatic way shouted: “Shaving is for losers!” Which made John laugh until he watched the tent actually working.

The bag started hovering and unzipped itself. The tent peeled outside of the bag, which in turn rolled together and flew into Rave’s hand. The tent unfolded a fair amount of times before it covered a space twice as big as John’s actual room and settled on the ground. A moment of peace as the sound of small metal pieces clicking together faintly whispered into the otherwise still forest. Then with a sudden ‘Boof’ the roof of the tent rose to three metres height. The whole tent had gone from a small circle to a huge rectangle.

That was not a tent. It looked more like a container. It even had a wooden door. “Let’s go inside.” Rave said as John was still staring at the thing, mouth agape. She went in without him. A minute later she came back outside and grabbed him by the hand. “It’s just a tent.”

It was not a tent. The inside was an enormous room, the walls covered by a white wood. It had a bed easily big enough for two people, a kitchen with an oven (with integrated heating plate), a counter with three drawers and a huge fridge.

No way that this was a tent. There was a carpet on the floor next to a wardrobe with a sock drawer. A window at the back illuminated the whole thing, most of the light falling on a weird contraption that looked like a mixture of bad cable management and black metal chimney in the middle of it all.

“This cannot be described as a tent!” John finally said and pointed at the shower at the edge of the room, a walled of section where the toilet most likely was. “This thing is more luxurious than the Arcade. What the hell?”

“It also costs about 400 Million Dollars.” Rave said. John almost keeled over. “How much?” He thought he heard a loud ringing noise all of a sudden, couldn’t be that Rave just said 400 Million dollars. “400 Million Dollars.” Rave just repeated with a wide smile and threw the bag of clothes in front of the wardrobe without a care in the world. “So, you wanna marvel at my dad’s money or go kill some spooky bedsheets?” She asked.

“Ehm, I think I will go with the Ghosts.” John said.