Ashcroft

The rest of the bus trip was fairly uneventful for John. He tried changing seats to find a new position in the bus where he could just sit and watch both Cassandra and Vanessa. The latter one, the cheerleader who had been bullying him over countless years, did pretty much everything he expected. She texted on her phone, talked with her 'bitches', checked and redid her make-up...

The bully didn't even act all that different from how she normally would. There were no suspicious actions or looks. She just... went through the motions. Even when her motions typically involved things like demeaning everyone else around her.

Cassandra, on the other hand, was nearly the complete opposite. Nearly.

From the moment that John started watching her to the time that they got off the bus, the brunette didn't move much. She didn't speak and didn't bother messing with her phone. Most of her actions involved writing and scribbling in a little notebook she was carrying with her. She didn't even bother trying to take the notes down in her phone. Her attitude was boring and... almost too focused for John's taste. It was kind of creepy really.

That feeling only solidified when Cassandra eventually looked up from her book and the two found themselves staring right at the other.

John didn't go to his first hour class after that. Once the bus arrived, John was out and actually moving away from the large groups of people that populated the Ashcroft Academy. His focus, despite what he may have told his mom, was on finding the person who knew about his powers. He wasn't going to hide or try to maintain some kind of facade, not when he could have done something about it.

Not while he had magic.

Of course that meant that he had to find the person who found him out in the first place. With both nowhere else to look and, at the same time, everywhere else to look, John started with the three people that seemed to be the most likely: The Bitch Queen, Frank, and Cassandra.

His first instinct was to try and corner one of them. He hoped to eventually be able to block one of them off so he could interrogate somebody, but there was nothing to ensure that they would have told him the truth... or that John wouldn't have revealed too much if he did that.

He wasn't too proud of the fact that his second instinct was to try and make a truth serum in the chemistry lab.

As fortunate as it was for the lab to be empty that early in the morning, John quickly found that a truth serum wasn't going to be possible with the things he found in the chemistry lab. With the combined uses of Observe and his new Alchemy skill, the best recipes he was actually able to discover weren't all that useful for him right now.

The alchemical process was neat, though. For the small moment in time that he used it, John realized that activating the ability with the recipe that he had in mind would set him to work. In a way, it turned out to be similar to some of the role-playing games he was used to. The Alchemy ability worked off of something that seemed to either be a points or time system. It helped to show him what he could make and how to make it, and then it was up to him to put the time it took into creating said item... or he could spend Mana on it. At the start of each experiment, John was given a little pop-up, asking him if he wanted to skip ahead to the end result and listing how much Mana it would cost to create that specific item. Of course, it varied between each one, and he didn't bother wasting the Mana to make the items, but it was good information to have.

In the end, it all mixed together mostly into a bunch of different kinds of acids or poisons, and neither solved his problem even after he added a couple bottles of the two different generalizations into his inventory.

He did get another level in his Observe skill however, and that spawned a new idea.

He may not have had any kind of truth serum or anything of the sort, but he did have his Observe ability. That, in the whole arsenal of abilities that he had, was the one thing he had that might have been able to reveal some kind of useful information about this whole problem.

New Quest: Hunted becomes the Hunter
A rocky start for a new and magical beginning has proven to be more dangerous than you initially realized...

• Find evidence of the discovery of your powers.

Reward

• 50 Exp

Optional Objective

• Complete the Primary Objective before school ends

Reward

• 10 Units Of A Random Material

ACCEPT QUEST?
YES | NO

John hit yes without missing a beat. A quest for what he had been planning on doing in the first place? That didn't happen all too often in video games, unless you specifically looked for such a quest. On top of that, despite how little experience it gave him, it was enough for him to finally level up! He just had to find whoever it was tha-

"What are you doing in here?!" a shrill, ringing voice snapped out suddenly, echoing out from the chemistry room doorway to all the way on the other side of the room.

John jumped at the sound of another person; his focus on the alchemical work before him and his magical pop-ups was shattered by the abrupt realization that another person could very well have just discovered his powers. He quickly reassured himself with the idea that he wasn't doing anything that would have led to that assumption. He was just... mixing chemicals! He hadn't cast any spells... yet.

"Are you deaf!?" It was more of an accusation than a question by that point as John spun on one heel to turn and face... perhaps his worst nightmare.

When John turned around, it was to meet the ever-judging gaze of one Mary... something. He didn't really remember her name, but with the information Observe gave him, he didn't really need to.

Mary Davis-Lorenzo
Level 4 Cheerleader
<Squeaker>
HP: 40/40
Relationship: -21

The sight of Mary brought genuine worry to the eyes of John Newman. His face, which had already been dealing with the habit of **** on his surprise, paled at the sight of that little Latin tapping her foot. Her naturally tanned, freckled features were furrowing at John. Long locks of wavy black hair hung freely just past the edge of her narrow shoulders, with little blonde highlights streaking through it like comets through a night sky. Her green and shimmering eyes were focused solely on John, growing visibly harder with anger and hatred as John blatantly continued to check her out.

Like everyone else on the Ashcroft cheer squad, Mary had the body fitness that was to be expected. Rumor had it that Vanessa didn't accept anyone onto the team who wasn't in shape. Her uniform, which had been tinted with the typical Ashcroft colors, consisted of nothing more than a matching skirt, top, and tennis shoes combo. Her skirt, which was indecently short and frilly, by no means fit in with school protocol. It never did, and many of the cheerleader's had their uniforms exactly like it. Her small crop top wasn't much better. The sheer strip of fabric fit Mary's torso like a second skin, clinging to her bust so tightly that it pushed her small bosom together and **** them to pop before the eyes of everyone around her. Her breasts, which might have been the smallest on the cheer squad, were just as pert and exposed as the rest of her. Her cleavage glimmered in the deep, salacious V her top formed. A fresh sheen of sweat covered her skin from the morning jog she took every day to school; the very same jog that kept her body looking so sleek.

Strangely, John noted, the relationship score he held with Mary actually rose as he stood there ogling the woman. Her expression still remained the dead opposite of what his magic revealed, but it still went up...

At least until it hit a solid -15...

Her hips, as small as they were when compared to the other girls John had interacted with over the past few days, still swung with a seductive beat as she walked over to him. Her small hands tightening around the clipboard and pen she carried. It took her seconds to cross the room over to where John was standing, and when she reached him, a loud clack filled the air as she rudely tapped him on the forehead with her pen.

"Hey! Are you-" she trailed off, her eyes falling still on the table of chemicals and instruments set up behind him. Her eyes widened at the sight of the mess he had made in the center of the laboratory, and after a moment, he heard the exaggerated gasp that one would normally expect from a teacher's pet. "What did you do?!" she shrieked and shoved John to the side.

She actually shrieked.

"I-I-I..." A pause filled the air as John watched the cheerleader struggle to process the scene before her. "I have to report this!" John nearly dropped his face into his hands.

Of course that was her reaction...

"You!" she rounded on John again, stabbing him in the center of his chest with the tip of her pen. Her other hand swung to rest on one hip as she tried, and failed, to lean over him. It was actually kind of reassuring for John to learn that she didn't seem so intimidating anymore... "You are going to be in so much trouble that... that..." The words actually seemed to leave her. "They'll kick you out of the school for this!" Another shriek filled the air. "Stealing school supplies... like some kind of..." she just continued to grumble like that for some time, filling the dead air with nothing more than accusations and insults that did literally nothing to John's self-esteem anymore.

A part of him actually smiled as she tried and failed to come up with words that would phase him.

A whole minute must have passed with the two of them standing like that, and with each comment that Mary hurled in John's direction, she pressed on him. Both physically with her pen and aggressively as she tried again and again to get in John's face. The whole time he stared at her like she was nothing than a fly to him now... even though she was a higher level.

Eventually, John began to notice the flush in Mary's cheeks as she struggled to think up new insults for him. His brow furrowed for a moment, and while Mary seemed to think one comment about his smell had struck home, it hit him.

The aura... he thought and glanced over to the pop-up with Mary's information on it.

Mary Davis-Lorenzo
Level 4 Cheerleader
<Squeaker>
HP: 40/40
Relationship: -8

John's jaw slowly dropped as he watched the numbers in their relationship score slowly tick all the way up to a new -5 before they suddenly stopped. He blinked at the screen hovering next to Mary's head for a moment and then looked back over at her. The aura shifted her opinion of him nearly ten points into his favor...

There was a pause in the shrill noises Mary kept throwing into the room as John glanced down the front of Mary's slim form once more. His eyes dipped and drowned in the beautiful valley on her chest for a moment as John gradually looked down and over at the two spots where he expected her nipples to be. John found himself even more confused when he found the front of Mary's top to be smooth, as if it had been undisturbed by any sign of arousal from the squeaky cheerleader. Maybe she was just wearing a really thick bra. Again, their relationship score jumped, and finally stopped at a solid zero before John shoved forward suddenly.

"Yeah, you do that..." he mumbled, and his brow furrowed as he brushed against her and cast Theft.

Mary slid backwards as John shoved past her; her whole body flailed for balance before she caught the nearby table and went rigid. A wave of paleness washed over the tanned cheerleader, and with nothing more than a little peep, John slipped by her.

"W-what did you just do?" she asked as John neared the door. That made him stop.

"What?" He turned back to look at Mary as she scanned over the floor nearby her. Her face was burning a deep shade of red as she looked back and forth between John and the ground. One hand, which had abandoned the pen she once held in it, pushed down over the front of her skirt as she stood there. Her thighs clasped tightly together. The other hand, the one with the clipboard in it, was raised up and held aloft in front of her open mouth as John stared back at her.

"What did..." she trailed off.

Confused, John opened the menu to his inventory and looked over to the newest item filling one of the darkened, magical squares. In it, complete with a rough brown and tan texture, sat something that made John's jaw drop.

Shibari Thong.
This construction of ropes and knots is a thing of sexuality, created to tease and torment its wearer to the point of uncontrollable desire. The knots and ridges of this chestnut brown undergarment grind against the female anatomy in a way that is meant to be both arousing and dismissive to its wearer's needs. A darkened line of womanly moisture covers the central rope of this clothing article.
+10 Libido while worn
Increases the output of natural lubricants while worn

Mary rushed out of the room.