Wake up, kiddo.

Author note, it is recommended you set your reader to night-mode, or the black color setting for this chapter.

Error: Out of Bounds - ?????? ?? ??? ????
Disabling Gamer Protocol
Please be careful.

Ahhh Kos... or some say Kosm... Do you hear our prayers?

John didn't so much wake up as open his eyes. He was not in his room. In fact, insofar as he could tell, he was not anywhere at all. Beneath his feet was a large square of smooth black stone, maybe forty or fifty feet wide. Aside from that, there wasn't anything, only a starry void that spread out infinitely in every direction. It reminded him of the night sky, but every star seemed closer... almost within reach.

"Beautiful, aren't they?"

John whipped around. A second ago he'd been alone in this empty place, but now there was someone else, a tall man immaculately dressed in a black suit which looked older than anything John had ever seen. The man wearing it felt older still, despite his apparent middle-age. He was dark skinned, with a trimmed beard and mustache cut as cleanly as his clothing. His long hair draped over his shoulders but was pulled back and out of his eyes, held in place by a gold circlet. The stranger stared out at the empty void with a smile on his face, as though there was something wonderful tucked away in the pinpoints of light.

"I... guess," John said.

The man turned and looked at him with a raised eyebrow, and John shuddered. There was something wrong about his eyes. They were pale, too pale, almost fully white. If he hadn't been looking straight at John, he would have assumed the man was blind. The stranger stepped closer, and John took a step back and noticed that unlike everyone else he'd met, there was no name or level above the man's head. He tried casting Observe, but nothing happened. There wasn't even an error, like with Mrs. Wentworth.

Dreading the answer, John asked a question that felt alien to need to vocalize, "Who are you?"

"Good question, kiddo. I've had many, many names... Seimei, Gwydion, Judah, Merlin. Ah, but you can call me Solomon."

John's eyes widened at the name Merlin, but his breath caught at 'kiddo'. The nickname was the same as on his strange achievement and that was either an unfathomable coincidence or... he'd created it. Apparently, John's shock was plastered all over his face because Solomon laughed.

"Relax. I'm not going to hurt you. If I was, you wouldn't be here." Seeing his words only raise John's level of anxiety, Solomon sighed, "Perhaps this will help."

Override Accepted - Reactivating Gamer Protocol

The unsettling white text confirmed what John suspected; Solomon was the source of the message he'd received before. In a way, it was comforting to put a face to the unknown, but it also meant that this stranger had some control over his abilities.

"Well, are you going to take it? I may be immortal, but my time is still valuable." Solomon reached into a pocket and drew out a gilded pocket watch that ticked loudly in the silence. His eyes never left John's face.

John swallowed and considered his options. He was apparently trapped with Solomon wherever 'here' was. He could try to fight his way out, but it would be going up against an uncertain enemy that apparently had influence over his powers. Alternatively, he could hit 'accept'. One option threatened a probably unwinnable conflict and the other a bonus. He didn't really have a choice. John tapped 'accept', and the quest finished instantly, informing him of his new point of wisdom.

"Excellent. I knew you were smart; now we can get back on track." Solomon pocketed the watch, silencing it. "Look, kiddo, you need a mentor. In your current state the Abyss would eat you alive, literally and metaphorically. Since I would prefer that not to happen, I'm going to give you some badly needed lessons and the occasional push in the right direction. To begin with, try using your information skill on me. I believe it was called Observe?"

John reluctantly cast Observe.

Solomon
Level ??? ERROR - BUFFER OVERFLOW
Observe skill level insufficient.

"Ah. I'd forgotten her irritating need to obfuscate everything. Let me fix that for you."

Her?

Solomon reached up over his own head and pulled the error text away. The letters and question marks were tangible under his fingers, and Solomon spun them as if they were a combination lock. He stopped on a set of numbers and literally pulled a title out of his pocket to complete a full report.

Solomon
Level 613 Occultist
<Last Scholar of Lemuria>
Relationship: +50

"How's that?" he asked.

John stared in shock at the man's level. It was unbelievable, easily the highest he'd ever confirmed and, if his guess was correct, significantly higher than Mrs. Wentworth. Beneath that, the relationship score was equally stunning. If it could be trusted, then Solomon meant what he said and genuinely wanted to help. That raised several questions: how Solomon knew about him, why he wanted John to succeed, what exactly he planned on teaching... but the man had already started to speak again, and John focused back on him.

"Alright, kiddo. Let's get started. The Abyss." Solomon turned away from him and walked back far enough to put some distance between the two. Once he'd done so, he snapped his fingers and a swirling globe appeared. Africa, then Asia passed before John's eyes as Solomon continued. "This is your world, Earth, reality, whatever you want to call it."

John nodded and started to speak, but Solomon held up a hand.

"Let me finish, there will be time for questions after. Good. Now, let's take a step back." The globe shrunk to a tiny version of itself and, from all around John, the stars glowed. A pale-blue copy of each was pulled inwards into a growing cloud of lights. One stopped directly in front of John, and he looked at it more closely. The dot was actually another minuscule globe; he could barely make out the shape of continents and oceans. "Take a good look kiddo. This is the Abyss, a hundred, hundred worlds. Each unique.

"Try to stay with me here." The star map of worlds collapsed inwards, towards the dot of earth which began to grow again. It expanded across them and outwards until the sphere surrounded the stone they stood on. "The worlds of the Abyss aren't planets in space but conjured from the minds of mortals like you. Anything dreamed up is out there somewhere, between you and the other side."

One of the lights glowed especially bright, and a piece of it broke off. Floating closer to John, it expanded into a box inside of which was a tiny model of his Academy. "Sometimes the Abyss bleeds into your world, usually thanks to the meddling of someone like you. The colloquial term is 'an Illusion Barrier', since the result is an illusory facsimile of the true Abyss. It may look like your world, it might look like theirs, 'they' being creatures from the Abyss also caught or summoned into the barrier.

"Think of it as a dungeon of sorts. Now, normally a barrier will only open back up when it reconnects to either Earth or the Abyss. I think you can already guess what that requires." Inside of the box, John could see a miniature version of himself being beaten up by animated chairs. "Either you and every other human inside needs to die or be captured or you need to kill or capture everything from the Abyss. Of course, there are spells to escape barriers, and I'll teach you one when you're more practiced, but for the moment consider being trapped in one a life or **** battle."

The miniature version of John collapsed, and, with the sound of glass breaking, the model of the barrier broke apart and fell back towards the point of light it started from.

"Questions?"

John looked at Solomon. Pale white eyes stared back expectantly, and John felt compelled to ask something, anything, "You mentioned an 'other side', what is that?"

"Kadath, kiddo. Though that's only one name for it and most people just call it Outside." Solomon's tone was resonant, horrible, echoing with faded whispers of screams. John shuddered at a memory of the name.

A chorus of bells came from Solomon's pocket and he drew out the watch again, scowling at the time. "Apologies. We're running short, no time for more answers." He paused in thought for a moment. "Do you know who Pontius Pilate was?"

John racked his brain for the name, coming up blank. "What? No, I don't."

"The Prefect of Rome. No? Well, that will be your first assignment. Learn a bit about his decision and why he made it." Solomon paused, thinking and absentmindedly scratching his beard before looking back at John. "I'd recommend reading The Master and Margaritas."

John noted this quest didn't have a refusal button.

See you again soon, kiddo.