Reflections

It was still dark outside when John opened his eyes, only a stray moonbeam and the glow of his electronics barely illuminating his room. Half-asleep, he rolled over to look at the clock. It read 1:13 am, or ‘too early to be awake’.

Blearily, he pushed himself up to a sitting position and rubbed at his eyes. Things were quiet, save for a soft snoring that came from the cat-bed nestled up at his side. He looked down to find Adorabelle fast asleep, bundled up with her wings wrapped around the towels he’d given her as blankets.

A distant rumble drew John’s attention to the window, and he slipped out of bed as quietly as he could manage. He walked over to open it, allowing the aroma of oncoming rain to spread into the room. A flash lit up the sky, followed twenty seconds later by another rumble: thunder. He shut the window. Springfield’s summer storms tended to be sudden, short and above all else… wet. John loved the smell of rain, but not enough to leave a window open during a storm. He’d made that mistake once and lost almost $100 worth of cards because of it.

It was still strange to consider how little of a deal that’d be now. Between the money he’d made and his new powers… John shook his head and returned to the side of his bed.

“Mmm?” the fae girl stirred as he sat down and let out a muffled noise. Her wings got a bit tangled up as they tried to unfold, and Adorabelle pushed herself to an elbow with a yawn. She looked up at John with drowsy eyes and gave him a sleep-drunk smile.

He returned her smile with one of his own, “Hey, sorry to wake you. Everything’s fine.” The pixie nodded and fell back into her pillow. It took less than a minute for her to start snoring again. John watched her for a few seconds longer before he looked away.

The moment was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before and was practically unfathomable for John. Even setting aside the fact that Adorabelle was about as tall as his forearm, or the fact that she had wings, or that she was literally a fairy... he’d never had anyone be so **** around him before. John looked back at her. Days ago, this entire situation would’ve been an impossible fantasy, but now?

Now her presence instilled him with an urge that he was afraid to admit to.

It was the kind of feeling he got when he became attached to a character in a video game, but stronger, much stronger. In the scant few hours he’d known Adorabelle, part of which had been spent having sex to be entirely fair, John had gotten a good look at the kind of person she was: foul-mouthed, perverted, hedonistic, possibly an alcoholic, but also genuine, sincere and empathetic. The ditz had trusted him with her life, and she’d been right to. If Adorabelle was ever in trouble, he’d do whatever he could to help.

The simple fact was that he cared about the fairy.

John stared blankly into space as the idea set in. Aside from his mother, it had been years since he’d really been close to someone. Vanessa and his social ineptitude had seen to that. Of course he had online friends, but that was different. There was an implicit distance in his relationship to the people he gamed with; John had never really been willing to invest himself into connecting with people. In time, they’d always drifted away, and he’d found new people.

Things are different now, aren’t they?

He thought about Erica. The berserker had literally changed his life by introducing him to a new world full of amazing and terrifying things. She’d fought side-by-side with him, and they’d struggled together to survive and make it home. He even looked forward to seeing her at school... John’s gut clenched as he **** himself to admit what he already knew.

Erica was the friend he’d always wanted. Hot, funny, smart and… she’d treated him like a normal human being, rather than some worthless nerd. It was why the prospect of her leaving had hurt so much.

Unbidden, John’s mind recalled a memory he’d rather have left forgotten: a sickening image of blood all over the grass and a number plunging ever closer towards zero. He’d sooner fight a dozen nightgaunts or five hydras than relive that experience. It still terrified him in a way that even Fear Resistance couldn’t help.

A flash of lightning outside followed by a deep rumble of thunder signaled the arrival of the storm. Raindrops spattered against the glass of his window and the roof in a muffled pitter-patter. The sound helped soothe the traumatizing recollection, and muscles that John didn’t realize had tensed slowly uncoiled. Unfortunately, it had also disturbed his guest. Adorabelle was curled tight into a small ball. Her blanket had been pulled back from her shoulders and balled up by the motion.

Carefully trying not to wake her, John reached into the cat bed to tug the blanket free, draping it back over her sleeping body. The fairy snuggled into it unconsciously, her wings folding over it. She mumbled something incoherent and nibbled on her pillow. It looked ridiculous, and John couldn’t help but stifle a laugh. Moments like this made up for all the trauma and pain the last few days held. Well, that and the whole ‘having superpowers’ bit.

Still… John looked down at his hands. There was something missing from it all. He could have all the power in the world, but without a purpose to put it towards what did it matter? The last few days had been spent fighting for his life to survive, and he’d been so focused on that he’d neglected to consider an important question.

At the end of it all, what was he going to use his new powers to accomplish?

Brief considerations of world domination jumped to the forefront of John’s mind but were stifled by the sheer fact that he just didn’t care for it. Taking **** on Vanessa and Frank were more compelling, but what would he do after that? Likewise, it couldn’t be all that hard to become a multi-billionaire with the Abyss Auction…

Really, there was one answer, and as John watched Adorabelle sink her teeth into her pillow, that certainty only grew. His powers were for helping the people he cared about. With them he could ensure his mother never had to worry about retirement, he could keep Adorabelle safe from any prowling monster-cats and he could fight alongside Erica and, if he had to, take her place when she left.

But… his fingers curled into fists; to do that, he’d need to get stronger.

Filled with a new fire, John pulled up every window his UI contained and began searching through them for an idea of where to start. His gear could use upgrading, but there was the matter of missing parts, and he still needed to order some things off the Abyss Auction. His spells were a lot weaker than the runic magic he’d seen Erica pull off, and his combat skills weren’t remotely on par with Moira’s deadly hammer.

Switching to the Progress Screen, John noted that he hadn’t yet received a new daily quest and that the old one was still active. Experimentally, he tried reaching inwards to cast Fool’s Wit, only to find that inaccessible as well. He made a mental note that the ‘reset’ period for his ‘day’ wasn’t at midnight. Maybe the Developer had based it on a different time-zone?

Next on the list was his inventory, where his eyes landed on a particular item. Though he wasn’t entirely sure where he’d read it, John remembered something about how every ancient wizard had a place to practice their magic. A study, maybe, or a workshop?

Extracting the item, John stared in a bit of confusion at the paper.

Deed to John Newman’s Workshop

He didn’t remember ever buying that. John couldn’t read the language that the page was written in, and the description for it only made him more confused. Ulthar? Where was that? Apparently, he owned property somewhere there were a lot of cats. He couldn’t remember browsing the Abyss Auction before going to bed, but John couldn't think of anywhere else he could’ve gotten such a thing.

The easiest way to figure it out would be to just go to the place listed on the document, 1292 Sycamore Avenue. John grabbed his phone off the bedside table and plugged the address into Gorbachev-Maps. The spinning globe of the earth disappeared, replaced by a map of a different world. ‘The Dreamlands’, it said at the top.

John eyed the document more cautiously but checked on his spell list anyways. There’s no way he’d have bought the property if he couldn’t get to it; right, Stellar Dive had leveled up. He tapped on the skill’s name, and a new screen appeared

Abyssal Map
This directory contains every destination for Stellar Dive that you have personally visited or otherwise learned of.

John blinked as the screen wrapped itself into a sphere, easily recognizable as Earth. On an impulse, he reached up and grabbed the planet he lived on with both hands, then he pulled them outwards. The globe expanded, and John’s perspective zoomed in towards a tiny city that grew larger and larger until he was looking at… Springfield. Huh.

Pushing his hands back towards one another, he collapsed the map back down to a hand-sized globe. Once he did, a popup window opened along side it. John glanced over. It listed the cave he and Erica had been trapped in, ‘Eden’ and ‘Ulthar’. Eden was highlighted.

Where have I heard that name used before?

The lizardman in the temple. He’d called John and Erica ‘Children of Eden’. It must be the name for Earth used in the Abyss. John callously disregarded that detail, and somewhere a Christian theologist broke into inexplicable tears. Instead, he tapped on Ulthar.

An oval disc replaced the globe, with geography nearly identical to that of Gorbachev-Maps. Most of it was covered in a thick, white fog, but just below the median line was a revealed area. In the dead center was a city marked ‘Ulthar, the City of Cats’.

Well, he knew where it was, sort of, and he had a way to get there…