Not tonight.

John sat at his desk in his new armor and absentmindedly fiddled with a dagger he'd made out of the leftover metal. Now that he was closer to being properly outfitted, he could potentially take on more monsters like the poltergeist from the morning... if he knew how to find them. That was the key problem. He had a pile of questions a mile high and no answers, so he turned to Goggle.

Searching for "Illusion Barrier" resulted in several abilities with similar names from games he'd played on occasion, but none of them were helpful. He tried researching poltergeists instead and that came up with a bit more. There were dozens of paranormal belief sites that made claims of contacting spirits or experiencing spectral activity. John clicked through them, looking for references to animated objects, particularly chairs.

What he learned over almost an hour of research was that people desperately wanted to be special. There were hundreds of accounts presumed supernatural activity that were easily explainable. Nothing about people being attacked by furniture or trapped in some kind of alternate dimension. He'd even looked on some conspiracy and alien-related pages just in case. It wasn't impossible that reported abductions were actually people stumbling into barriers...

John pushed his chair back from the desk and winced slightly as it crushed a couple of trading cards. The mess from his teleportation home was still scattered all over his room. He stood up, stretched and started gathering cards to pile back on his desk. When John picked up a particularly expensive one, ruined by a massive crease over the front, he wasn't sure how to feel. A day ago he'd be losing his mind. Thirty dollars of his cardboard ruined. Thirty dollars! Now, he had over ten times that amount in his inventory from a mostly average day, and he had far more important things to be worried or excited about.

Still, it was something of his, and John did his best to smooth out the ruined card before setting it on his desk.

He'd piled most of the cards back where they had come from and had started on the fallen books when the whole house rumbled faintly with the sound of the garage door opening. John looked at his phone without much surprise, 6:30 pm. His mom was home late, though she did it so often that it could be considered 'on-time'. He threw two more books on the shelf and waited.

Exactly when he expected it, the downstairs door opened and his mom called up, "John! I'm sorry I'm late! I picked up Chinese on the way home, I hope that's alright!"

"Its fine, mom!" he yelled back.

John looked around his room. It was still half-covered in the mess, but he didn't have the time to handle what was left. He stored the remaining material cubes and loot from the day in his chest and burned away the rest of the evidence of his unnatural day with Forge. There shouldn't be anything left lying around that would raise questions...

He tossed one last book up on the shelf and headed for the door. At the bottom of the stairs, he remembered he was still wearing his armor.

John frantically pulled up his Character Sheet and mashed the Swap Sets button he'd discovered earlier. The leather gear flickered and was replaced by his normal clothes a second before his mom poked her head out of the kitchen.

"There you are. I got orange chicken, barbecued pork and fried rice... they were out of shrimp. Sorry."

He winced. The local Chinese place wasn't amazing, but they did have fantastic walnut prawns. Dinner without them would be a bit bittersweet. "Damn. That's a pity," he said, as he entered the kitchen and took a seat at the table.

"John. Language." His mother always chided him about it, but they both knew she hardly meant it; she could swear like a sailor.

Dinner was a reasonably passive affair. His mother asked about his day, John gave his standard vague answers and they both focused on their food. At least until she brought up the news. In the past two weeks, four female students had vanished without a trace. The mystery had made the headlines almost every day since the third.

"It's a bit worrying, all these recent disappearances. I'd really appreciate it if you tried to come home early until it all blows over. Say... 9 o'clock?" she asked, with the tone of one that wasn't actually asking a question.

Brenda Newman was a caring and supportive mother, but she could be a bit over-protective for John's liking. He chafed at the idea of a curfew, not because he had any specific plans, he didn't, but that wasn't the point. John didn't like the restrictive nature of what his mother was proposing... and it could last for a while, since the police had no leads on the case.

He looked up from his food and met his mother's genuinely worried gaze. Any denial he might have been willing to voice faltered, and John grudgingly agreed.

"Thanks. I know it's not ideal." She took another bite of her food and thought for a second, "Maybe this weekend we can go see the new Wonder Comics film?"

John nodded; it was fairly typical of his mom to resort to bribery when she felt guilty, but he wasn't above taking advantage of it.

"Sure, that sounds good. I've got something on Saturday so..." he said.

"Oh? What's that?"

John swallowed and tried to think of an answer that wasn't 'my hot teacher might want to bone me'. He settled for, "Miss Summers offered to tutor me, and I could use the help."

"Fantastic!" Brenda smiled and reached over to ruffle John's hair. "Look at you, being a real go-getter. I hope you have fun and learn a lot."

"Yeah, I probably will," he said, trying to fix his hair.

I'll get some hands-on experience for sure...

Once the take-out containers were bundled up along with the other trash and the dishes washed, John excused himself and retreated to his room. The mess he'd left half-cleaned was still there, and he continued cleaning things up. It was getting darker, so he flicked on his desk and standing lamps. Artificial orange light steadily replaced the natural illumination, and, by the time he was finished piling up the rest of his clothes, it was night.

John flopped back onto the bed with his Character Sheet opened a foot above him. The day had been... a lot. He tried to walk through it all and process what had happened. The powers he'd gained, while awesome, had plunged him into a world of new dangers that he barely understood. Along the way, he'd gotten a... date of sorts and quite a bit of other female attention. Technically, being chased by Erica counted. John had to admit that things could be worse.

Despite it all, he still had to go to school tomorrow... at least he didn't have any homework.

The thought was so ridiculous that John snorted. After everything, with all his bigger problems on the horizon, it wasn't the literal superhumans or the monsters that first came to mind. No, he was relieved he didn't have a math assignment. It was just absurd. Yet... the absurdity was comforting.

Who knew what tomorrow held, but the sun would rise and people would to work and the world would keep on turning. Reality grounded him.

John rolled over and hit the lights, plunging the room into darkness. He couldn't help but feel he was missing out on something, that other choices during the day could have been more profitable... that there was a pile of experience around the metaphorical corner and he just needed the map... but for now...