-Ehsan Segal

"That was really weird," John noted, glancing around the Abyssal Market quickly to make sure that the woman who had approached them was nowhere within sight. She wasn't immediately visible, which relieved him a bit.

"No kiddin'… just me, or did she seem like she was a couple pence short of a pound?"

"Oh come on, that's just intentionally British."

"Yeah, alrigh'… sometimes I like screwin' with ya."

"Just don't ever lose the accent. It's pretty damn sexy."

John and Seras continued to banter playfully, the mood lightened by the fact that neither of them were being approached by any strangers, much less ones with such odd tendencies and verbal outbursts. Exploring the rest of the market was mostly about window shopping; there were no other shops that they were interested in that they could actually afford to go into. Not only that, but the Abyssal Market was understandably small compared to even a particularly large mall, despite Springfield’s vast size.

They had already covered a lot of ground, so only a few blocks remained, and most of them were starting to fade out into semi-mundane shops after only another hour of shopping. They were starting to see a few more food places than before, including a pasta restaurant with the wafting odor of alfredo sauces, mozzarella, and garlic floating into the street so intensely John's mouth started to water furiously.

Aside from that there were clothing shops that appeared to offer both mundane and enchanted pieces - including some that were enchanted in almost hilariously mundane ways, like a pair of pants enchanted against stains and a set of underwear that were, to put it lightly… "magically fragranced".

A jewelry store did catch John's eyes, originally mostly due to its potential for being used in accessories for himself. True, there were definitely lots of magical gems inside which apparently bestowed enhancements to gear. It was perhaps John's first real experience with game mechanics outside of his powers actually existing, but he supposed that something of magical culture had to leak into a dev studio. What surprised him more than that were actually the mundane gemstones. Diamonds the size of his fist were priced at a few million dollars - thousands of times less than they would have been to any mundane market.

"Why the hell are these so cheap?!" John mumbled, mostly to himself. He was quite surprised when someone answered.

"I wondered why you were over here. You're new to the Abyss, aren't you?"

John jumped a bit as a middle-aged man no more than five feet tall strode up to him, glancing over at the items on display. John's shock and surprise, as well as his quick jump to a semi-ready stance, must have given him away. The slightly wrinkled man flicked his glasses up as he gazed into John's face, scrutinizing.

"No need to say anything, I can tell. Well, if you're so curious, these are 'mundane' diamonds. Yes, it's true that they would sell for far more in the mundane markets, but between the restrictions on magically created items being moved in non-magical markets and the difficulty in finding a buyer with a few billion to throw around for their true value, selling them often isn't worth the effort. And nobody from the Abyss wants them because their value is meaningless to most who are interested in status symbols, and wearing them is like strapping a baseball to your fingers before going into combat. Honestly the only reason I sell gems this massive here is to appease the vanity of the Abyssals that have more money than sense."

"Oh, uh… thanks. I appreciate the information."

"I appreciate the chance to escape my boredom," the old man guffawed, wrinkling his nose in a way that shook his untrimmed moustache. "With the Order and the Cabal ending their war, nobody is gearing up anymore! The Necromancers haven't been seen in weeks, and half the clientele that made it through the last round are ones I can't count on to pay their own bills."

"If things are that bad, why is the Abyssal Market here anyway? Why not a bigger city?"

The man let a laugh that was half bark escape. "Because there's no city anywhere near this size as peaceful… the Abyss has always been chaotic. Don't worry about me, lad. There's always another war coming around the corner."

"That may be the single least calming reassurance I've ever been given," John noted as the store owner walked away. John eyed the diamonds one last time, contemplating them deeply. What had once seemed like fantastic gifts or mesmerizing treasures to him were suddenly nothing more than baubles, items too weighted in impracticality to be of use to him.

All the same, his eyes lighted on some of the smaller ones. The ones he could fit into his pocket without encumbering himself, those that were not excessively oversized, they still seemed brilliant to his partially mundane eyes. They called to a materialistic part of him that he couldn't deny. So it was with **** that John pulled himself away from the stores, comforted mostly by Seras, who seemed far more grounded than he was.

"I think that's about all that we've got to check out today, right?" Seras asked, glancing around. "Seems like everythin' else here is just a repeat."

"Agreed," John noted, staring at the stores. "Pretty well taken care of around here. We can come back once I have some more cash, but until then, there are better places for us to spend our time. We should head out; I have one last thing to take care of, and if we don't do it quick, it'll be dark before we get back."

"I'd be alrigh' with that… but what else were you plannin' today?"

"Well, not really planning… just kind of hoping," John noted, pulling out his phone. He scrolled through the numerous numbers he had acquired over the past few days, most of them secondhand through Moira. One stood out to him - Kim Moon, one of the few people he had yet to overly offend that he could reliably call an "ally", however loose the term. Not only that, but one of the less busy ones, from what he understood. The Moon Clan had apparently received whatever it was they had desired from the post-war negotiations, and Kim had not been present at any of the meetings John had been around recently.

"Let me make a quick phone call… I have an offer I don’t think she can refuse."

Layla sighed as the target of her attentions left her sight once again. Despite leaving her view, the aura that she had spent so much time focused on did not dull even slightly. If anything, spending as much time focused on it as Layla had only made it sharper and clearer in her senses. It felt so different from the others around it that she could feel it even when it was surrounded by dozens of others, when it should have been drowned out by the auras of those stronger than it.

"I feel like I'm being called to… as if the aura itself is whispering my name every time I let my guard down. But why? Nothing else has called to me this way. In all my years at Firesmith, I never experienced such euphoria, never lost myself so completely…"

Now, with so much distance and time between herself and the aura, Layla had begun to put logical thought between herself and the strange sensations of that mysterious aura. Objectively she knew that such a thing was dangerous. It was an intoxicating pleasure, one that tried to sway her into losing herself in its pulsations every time she let her guard down. Putting her guard back up was almost painful, as if she were tearing herself away from it. Already she found her thoughts slipping away, as John stepped back into view from a bakery and her eyes locked on his figure. His perfect, radiant, lustful figure, and the luscious aura that numbed her senses and set her most sensitive places to overload.

But years of training at the Academy had honed Layla's instincts, even when she was focusing every fiber of her being on something else. Even as she luxuriated in the radiance that was John, she had realized something. Aside from the shopkeepers, almost everyone in the market - herself included - was mobile, and as she followed John from store to store, only three auras remained consistently within range for her to sense over the hour and a half she followed him. One was John himself, the second was his companion, and the third was always between herself and John. Typically out of sight, but always close behind.

"Is he aware that I'm here? It could be some kind of bodyguard…"

Given his obvious hesitance in the store, Layla could certainly imagine John wanting protection from her, but what was the point of setting a bodyguard if he knew she was following him? Perhaps he was trying to discern her motives, but if that was the case, he would have to remain disappointed. Layla had no intentions of approaching and scaring him away. She needed to feel more of that aura - purely to discern its origins, of course.

As John entered another store, the guard came into view for the first time. She was yet another blonde woman, causing Layla to ponder - sadly, despite her best efforts - if John might have a thing for blondes. Compared to the woman glued to John's hip, that was where the similarities ended. Her figure was slimmer, more muscular, and black tattoos ran across every part of her skin that she could see in various patterns, almost floral in nature. The woman was lurking on the other side of a stall displaying magically altered health foods designed to taste like luxurious desserts as well as some more heavily enchanted concoctions, idly inspecting the merchandise with obvious disinterest… facing almost directly away from Layla herself.

"Perhaps she doesn't know I'm here after all," Layla noted, peeking out from a display window of a nearby boutique. "Her focus is on John. She may simply be protecting him from a distance… unless-"

Layla's eyes narrowed as the woman suddenly shifted, slinking to the side and placing a crowd of bystanders between herself and John. As the handsome young mage and his blonde companion idly strolled away, she slowly made her way along the streets, following after him again. She never so much as glanced behind herself.

"That's no guard I've ever seen… John, just what kind of followers are you attracting? You can't be enticing all these women to follow you, they'll just get in my way."

The thought was infuriating, and what was more infuriating was how easily the words echoed through Layla's mind. Well, regardless of that, she was going to have to follow John now. Who knew what kind of trouble he was in to have someone stalking him like some kind of crazy killer? It would be unthinkable to allow him to remain oblivious to such danger. She took a single step forward to follow after John and see who this new follower was, when something broke her out of the mild trance she'd been in since that man walked into Teajuvenation. Layla's phone rang, and when she recognized the ringtone playing, it was immediately in her hand.

"Hello, Tessa."

"Um, hey, are you gonna be home soon? Figured we were gonna leave at four like usual, but you're running a little late. Thought I'd see if maybe I missed something?"

"Ah, no," Layla replied, blushing a bit as she checked her phone and realized just how long she really had been following the young mage. "I'm afraid I lost track of time completely. I'm so sorry. My training earlier must have taken more out of me than I thought, I zoned out and nearly fell asleep."

"Hey, no big deal, just means we'll have to meet up there instead. You take care of yourself, okay, Layla? We can always cancel if you're that tired."

"N-no!" Layla blurted out, her mouth speaking the words before her mind could come up with some reason why she should agree. "No, there's no need to cancel date night. That would just be silly."

Silly, of course. Foolish, absolutely. What had Layla been thinking? She had been about to go chasing off after a particularly savory aura, which was attached to a man who now thought she was unstable, and who himself was being followed by a potentially dangerous mage.

"Not that silly if you're falling asleep at the table, honey! But I'll find some way to keep you awake, don't worry."

"I'm sure you will. I'll meet you at the restaurant, just…"

Layla fought back the urge to ask for her to wait, to ask for a few extra minutes. John's aura was already fading out among the crowd. Layla nearly bit her lip as she finished her sentence regretfully.

"…just leaving now. I won't be far behind, so get us a table."

"Alright, sounds good. Love you Lay!"

"Love you too, Tess."