Arc 2 Start - Accelerate

Rave and John were riding a bus through downtown. A week had passed since their little photo session. They had tried their best to spawn more Spectres on weekdays but with the time constraints it proved pretty much impossible. However, as they had again spent the weekend camping in the forest they were still able to defeat two more of the blasted things and the continued farming (Although the Ghosts gave a lot less EXP now) had gotten John to Level 20 while Rave was level 21.

Before I tell you why they were on that bus let us go over every little bit of Info that could be interesting, right? Right. First off John.

As you can see he put all of his new points into Wisdom. This resulted in him reaching a mana regeneration of 10. With the Necklace and another item, he had gotten:

(John didn’t understand why that Items was at the bottom, after all the Attributes weren’t even that bad. Oh well.)

This was boosted up all the way to 10,8. Thanks to that he was able to continuously level Earth Elemental Summoning, keep Aclysia active and use the remaining amount of abundant regeneration to level Possession. He has refrained from putting his focus into Possession as, at least currently, the levels didn’t really do anything. At level 20 the description had changed to ‘Any size’ and on level 25 nothing new had been added. Either all new levels did was literally nothing or it did something in the background like making dispelling the effect harder OR it would only do something every 10 levels now. Either way he had decided to keep Gnome active all the time, as higher level of that skill made it cheaper for him to move earth around.

Aclysia on the other hand he kept active because he had no other choice. He was unable to set the skill offline. Sure, he could try to make himself run out of mana but what would be the use of that? After all, losing the advancement Aclysia had made would be saddening at the very least.

Aclysia had grown to the size of a very small person or a very big dwarf, depending on your view. Her explosive level increase came from two things: John had fed her all the other dropped equipment (also the Gloves of Sorrow, he felt really stupid running around with a women’s satin gloves) and every bit of enchanted crap he produced to level Enchantment. The other exciting development had been when he gave her Green Ectoplasm to consume after he dropped a second one. It had given he the Attribute Phasing, which allowed her to punch Ghosts and probably other Ethereal beings, as well as a (+5) to Intellect. He was still on the fence about giving her the second one to see if that Stat-Bonus stacked.

Finally Rave, every bit as cheery as ever, had advanced in the following way:

For some reason Gaia had gone to insulting him whenever he used Observe to guess what was on Rave’s mind. John knew that he should just talk to her but come on who wouldn’t try and use something this convenient?

There were also some changes to Enchant, Craft, the I.D. Skills and Artificial Spirit but none of them are of immediate concern. Back to the story.

They were riding the bus to a game shop at the edge of town. It was a shop John hadn’t even heard off before but as Rave explained there was a pretty simple reason for that: It was an Abyss shop. Apparently people from the Abyss had a certain way of deluding the attention from regular people from themselves. That way they wouldn’t be much of an outcry when, for example, somebody from the Abyss got killed. It was a pretty harsh reality but that way the secret society kept themselves veiled. As John had only stumbled into the Abyss two weeks ago he never heard of the shop because whenever he did he simply shrugged the memory off like everyone else had.

“Having things like that revealed to me is still shocking.” John said after hearing all of that as they stepped from the bus and walked down the uncleaned streets of downtown. “I get that.” Rave said, She was wearing a pink summer dress and sandals. It didn’t quit harmonize with her disguise but she had picked the clothes to harmonize with her actual looks, which made John assume that she would change once they arrived at their destination.

“Why would your dad even call us there?” John asked. “Dunno.” His girlfriend answered, “First time for me as well. I know Travolta goes there sometimes but nothing more outside of what I just told ya.” She shrugged the whole thing off as they spotted the shop in the distance.

It was a run-down shop at the edge of town. Pretty much exactly what they had expected. A sign made from neon tubes, currently not in duty, spelled the name ‘Orthodox Gaming’. John doubted that even half of the tubes would be working if the owner of the shop turned them on. They pushed open the broken glass door, a piece of wood had been tapped to the bottom left corner to keep the wind from blowing through a hole that looked like somebody had, very enthusiastically, kicked at the door.

Inside the shop it smelled like fresh plastic. Board and Card games were orderly put into the surprisingly clean shelves. A table at the corner allowed for people to peek inside the books that were assorted around it before making the purchase. Plastic figurines had an assortment inside the glass vitrine that also doubled as the counter, standing behind it a middle-aged man with a half-bald head who looked like a gust of wind could carry him a thousand miles away, thin as he was and with his slightly hunched figure. He was wearing a brown hoodie and had round glasses sit on his big nose.

“Hello, it is rare to see new customers around here.” He said in a nasal voice, rounding out his ‘Nerd past his prime’ appearance, “Do you want to see the cosplay section? I hear that is popular with you youngsters. W-which I like!” He hastily added the last bit. Rave raised an eyebrow as the shop owner hastily stumbled an apology. “Ehm, no, actually.” John tried to save the man from his stumbling. He felt a kindred soul here, awkward and nerdy as the guy was, so that was the least he could do. “Actually Regan Hol-“ “Regan Hollmey!” The shop owner interrupted him, his voice suddenly clear as day and several octaves deeper. “That must make you The Gamer, John Newman. I heard of your ability.” The shop owner straightened his back and only then did John realize how tall the guy actually was. Not as tall as Travolta but pretty tall nonetheless. “Needless to say I am jealous, Gamer abilities would have been very interesting. You and Jane shall come with me.”

He put on his brown hood, which against all laws of physics covered the upper half of his face in near complete darkness and walked towards a door hidden between two tall shelves. The door led to a basement. The single room was filled with dozens of machines that looked like bank terminals. They quickly walked through to reach another door. Which led to another flight of stairs downwards. At the end of the stairs there stood a black door, on it an electrical display.

The shop owner pulled out a piece of paper from his pants and started searching for a number. “This is an overlapping space.” Rave explained quietly. “They have copied the same room hundreds of times and to enter a certain one you need the correct number.” “What happens if multiple people leave at once?” John wondered. Rave shrugged but the owner had the answer for them. “If it is a badly made faculty the exit will be very cramped. However, if you look to your right you will see that we are Fateweaver certified.” The man spoke the truth. When John looked there was a certificate hung on the wall in a golden frame. “Fateweaver?” He asked. “One of the three great non-combat organizations. They specialize in the creation and manipulation of Illusion Barriers. You can think of them as a kind of architect union.” Rave continued her explanations. “Jimmie is a novice of them by the way.” “Really? Our Jimmie?”

The owner had finally found and punched in the correct number which resulted in the door swinging unlocking with a loud click. “When you leave you will find the Illusion Barrier to last until you have distanced yourself twenty metres from the shop. That is how we avoid cramped spaces.” He said and opened the door. “And now have fun with these two.” He shoved the lovers in and shout the door behind them.

Rave and John stumbled into a wild starring match between Travolta and Regan. Both had their arms crossed and were budging. Sure with his black tank top, the arms that might as well have been trees and the military style pants the giant Travolta was the more likely one to win this but everyone here knew that Regan Hollmey, who was wearing a black sailors cap on what looked to be a 18th hundred military uniform, a red cape and flip flops, was the true superior in this relationship.

The air was filled with intensity as they stood over the red table, Travolta at the right, Regan at the left, forevermore staring at each other.