Revealing the Truth

As Frank had John pinned against the lockers, the nearby students stood in a half circle around them. Most of them didn’t really want to see the carnage, but were too morbidly curious to walk away either, so they just stood nearby instead. John could hardly focus on the crowd as Frank’s elbow obstructed his ability to breathe. John could already feel tears begin to well up as Frank slammed his meaty fist into his gut.

-3 HP

John wanted to cough, but couldn’t let it out due to Frank’s elbow, so he could feel it get trapped inside his throat instead. As John wanted to gag, Frank leaned in close.

“Consider this as only your first lesson, Newman. When I’m done with you, there’ll be nothing left for even your whore of a mother to recognize,” Frank said as he smirked, proud of the insult that probably pushed his three brain cells to their limit.

John felt his anger begin to boil to the surface. He was fine with how Frank bullied and insulted him, but his mother was something he couldn’t let go. John began to imagine it, the cold handle of the scythe, Frank’s decapitated head on the ground.

Shit, am I really considering ****? But if there was someone, anyone, that the world would be better without, it would be Frank, as John contemplated this new moral conundrum, an unexpected yell came from down the hallway.

“Hey! What’s going on here, move out of the way people!” said a clearly annoyed girl as she made her way through the crowd.

“Oh shit, that’s Moira Brighton,” John and Frank both heard from the nearby onlookers. Moira Brighton was the only person in Ashcroft, if not in all of Springfield, that rivaled Vanessa Hawthorne herself in both status and power. There were even a few rumors that said she could probably kick Frank’s ass in a brawl, these were nothing more than baseless rumors for the most part. A part of John was actually curious about the truth behind these rumors; he cast Observe on Moira when her face was visible to him amongst the crowd.

Lady Moira Brighton
Warden of the Golden Rose
Paladin
Lvl 17
-15 Relationship Score

Nooooooooope! John mentally yelled, flashbacks of his life or **** struggle against a monster that had been the same level as him raced through his mind. John had one strategy and one strategy only for him to use now for survival. As Frank looked back to see Moira, John felt the pressure on his throat lessen.

With that, John initiated phase one of his master plan. He slipped under Frank’s arm and stumbled past him. Phase one now complete, John moved on to enact phase two of his genius plan. He ran away from Frank, Moira, the entire crowd, and headed straight for Mr. Stone’s class.

As he reached Mr. Stone’s class, John slowed down to a fast walk. He opened the door and saw that he was still one of the first people to get to class. He sat down at his desk, and began to plan the third and final phase of his grand stratagem. He would simply avoid Frank, Moira, and anyone else with high numbers for the rest of the day.

He nodded to himself, his plan for the rest of the day now in place. He opened his bag and put his biology text book on his desk. Now ready for class, he cast Observe on the classmates that were already here until the rest showed up.

A few minutes later

Mr. Stone, always the last to arrive, came into the class and sat down behind his computer. John cast Observe on him as soon as he sat down.

Observe lvl up
Lvl 3 → lvl 4
Observe can now be cast with no MP cost.

Sweet! A free spell, I wonder if every spell eventually becomes free if I level them up enough, John thought to himself as he opened up his textbook to the page they last stopped on.

John spent the rest of the class bored, unable to level up Observe without anyone new, and Mr. Stone himself could be best described as a dull teacher. The class slowly finished, even the electronic bell that signified the end of class sounded slow to John.

John checked his daily calendar on his phone; he had History with Miss Wentworth next. Unlike Biology, John actually liked History as a class, even if Wentworth herself was a pretty strict teacher. Once again, he slugged his bag over his shoulder and made his way to his next class.

As John walked through the hallway, he looked behind his shoulder every 10 seconds to see if Frank had come to finish the job. He did this until he eventually reached Miss.Wentworth’s class and took his seat in the back row.

To continue his quest to get Observe to its max level, he began to cast it on everyone in class, and on Wentworth last.

Observe failed!

When John looked up from his notification of the failure, he saw Wentworth glare at him from where she stood in front of the board. To him, her gaze felt like it would cause his head to explode. Then she turned around and picked up her chalk to begin today’s lesson. John’s hands shook as he took his supplies out of his bag and placed them onto his desk.

“Mr. Newman, see me after class,” John heard inside his head, but when he looked up he saw that Wentworth still had her back turned to him.

Yes ma'am, he said in his head. He hoped Wentworth heard him but didn’t see any physical reaction from her. The rest of class slowly went by as he copied his notes, not due to boredom but sheer fear instead.

The bell finally rang. Wentworth pulled her chalk away from the board and set it on her desk. As everyone else grabbed their bags and headed out for lunch, John stayed behind and waited with terror next to Wentworth's desk. As the last of the students walked out of the class, the door slowly closed behind them and locked itself.

“Come with me,” Wentworth command as she opened the door to her office and walked inside. John meekly followed, his head hung low.

You have been pulled into a barrier.
Owner: Victoria Wentworth
You may not leave until the owner permits it.

John felt the slight shift in reality; however, unlike the other barrier that had been a copy of reality, Wentworth’s was completely different from the typical teacher's office in every way. Instead of the small, bland office that every teacher had, Wentworth’s seemed to be several times larger than that. The office was filled with bookshelves and chests, all of them organized and labeled. However, when John tried to read the labels, they appeared blurred and seemed to him like a jumbled mess.

“Mr. Newman, I ask that you keep your eyes straight and sit down,” Wentworth said in a voice that was clearly a command rather than a request as she pulled up a chair for him to sit on. He did so and she herself sat in a chair across from him.

“Miss Wentworth, whatever you’re thinking, I swear to you that I just got these powers today and I honestly have no idea what I’m doing,” John said, as he already knew that his best chance of survival was to open with honest truth.

“Explain,” she simply said with arms crossed and a cold stare. And so he did, he told her everything that had happened to him today, from the morning when he woke up with new powers, to his encounter with the demon and his absorption of its power. She simply continued to stare as he finished his explanation.

“So, uhhh, that’s pretty much everything, anything else you want to know?” John asked.

“Yes, you said that these powers of yours make everything seem like a video game, tell me more,” Wentworth told him, her cold eyes now mostly melted and full of curiosity.

“Well for starters, I get achievements, quests, a level, and I have stats, like my total intelligence is represented by an intellect stat and how well I can apply that knowledge by a wisdom stat. I also have an inventory and have skills, for example I, uhhh, have a skill called Observe that’s level 4. It gives me basic information on anyone I cast it on. Like their name, level, class, title, and their relationship with me.

“Interesting, tell me, when you used it on me, did it reveal anything?” she asked, an eyebrow raised.

“No, I got a message that told me the spell failed and I wasn’t able to get any information,” John told her.

“Yes, it seems that even though that skill felt stronger than the typical scrying spell, it can still be blocked,” she said as she leaned back into her seat.

“Moving on, when you said earlier that you absorbed the demon’s essence, how did that affect your powers?” Wentworth asked, her curiosity now even greater than before.

“I got an updated character sheet, I have a new experience bar that tells me how much demon experience I have, and when it fills up, I get a point to spend in a skill tree. When I used a point before, I unlocked a spell called Soul Weapon,” he explained as he cast Soul Weapon and held out the scythe for Wentworth to see.

She took the scythe from him and lifted it into the air as she inspected it. After several seconds she nodded to herself and handed the weapon back to John who dismissed it immediately.

“Miss Wentworth, now that you know I clearly have no idea what I’m doing and since you clearly do, may I ask you something?” he asked as his eyes shifted away to avoid direct eye contact.

“Yes, go ahead, I am currently satisfied with the honest explanation you gave me,” she said, her eyes directly on him.

He shifted his gaze and looked her straight in the eye, ”Could you make me your apprentice?”