Sharpening the Thorn.

While the Extended Chain was temping, since it'd increase his range by a considerable amount, and while the Puncturing Flail offered an improvement in damage, what drew John's attention were the upgrades stemming from the Stake Driver. He had no idea what either the Solar Core or the Wrath Engine did, but they sounded impressive. Curiosity and cool names were too tempting to deny; that was the path he'd take first.

He selected the upgrade and was prompted to summon his weapon, which he did without hesitation. The Gilded Thorn appeared, surrounded in a swirling cloud of energy that crackled with colorful lightning. The electricity harmlessly coursed over his fingers and the hilt, absorbing into the base of the handle. At the very end of the weapon, a metal spike appeared, protruding from the bottom as though it'd always been there. The energy faded, and he was left with a newly improved Thorn.

Weapon Upgraded!
The Gilded Thorn - Stake Driver
Base damage increased by 5

John held the Thorn away from himself and tilted it in a few directions to get a good look at the added stake. The point looked rather deadly. He squeezed the hilt and the internal spike shot out; a foot or so of dull metal that immediately retracted. John blinked, then a grin spread across his lips. Just because he could, he triggered the Stake Driver again. The motion was oddly satisfying; smoothly fluid and punctuated with a clean 'shunk' sound. He did it one last time before dismissing the weapon.

Although the melees he’d participated in until now had been hectic and mildly traumatizing affairs, John had to admit he was looking forward to the next one… if only to get a chance to try out his new trick. That’d have to come later though, he had other things to take care of before he went picking a fight.

Somewhere on the school grounds was the last oddity, but John had no idea where it might be. He'd checked every building and combed the exteriors. No luck. Not even a hint as to what it might look like. The other oddities had been… well… odd, but there wasn’t any shared element he could look for. Erica’s ring had proven that it had to be more than just magical to qualify. He was searching blind, and was about to be unable to search at all. John checked his Character Sheet. He was down to 6 mp in his reserves, which would last for maybe ten minutes if he was extremely frugal with it.

There was one potential solution; he flipped to his inventory and stared at the Mana Potions he’d acquired. One would give him enough juice to search for another hour, but was it worth using them if he didn't have any clues? They were his only lifeline if he ran into trouble and was tapped dry.

John didn't like admitting it, but throwing in the towel on the optional objective might be the best approach. It was giving up valuable experience, but if he didn't find the last oddity then he’d be down a potion too. He checked his phone, 5:15. There wasn’t enough time left to wait for his regen. John ran a hand through his hair as the choice gnawed at him. If only he had something to look for… then he could-

Accessing Event NK.B.53: Svsjd Ubmpo

"Sign up? Kid, you don't even know who... well I guess you do. Sorry, we don't take Brighton slaves, even if they're suckers who signed on without knowing the price," as the tall man spoke, the cloud of mist covering the infirmary floor grew thicker. It roiled with metallic motion, glowing with a hundred crimson dots. The swarm's million legs clicked against the floor, walls, ceiling of the room, closing in on all sides like a wave of liquid brass.

In the empty clearing, bereft of anything but cold air, he clutched his head in pain. Fragments of memory jumped forward.

John breathed as quietly as he could, listening from behind the last remaining item in the room, the privacy screen. The horde of constructs on the other side had gone silent, and only Dr. Talon's footsteps resounded in the room. As the artificer approached one of his faux hiding spaces, John took aim and held his breath, waiting for the perfect moment. He nearly gave himself away as the swarm reactivated, converging on his other portal to dig into the walls and ground.

"It's a street hawker's trick: misdirection, but since I don't have time to pick a cup, I'm gonna burn you out of one or let my babies eat you alive from the other. I guess you're taking that from me though," the man's deep voice rumbled with a sardonic laugh, "since you're getting to pick how you die, unless you come out here and surrender right now!" When John didn't reveal himself, Talon grunted, "See, that's another problem with kids, they don't have any respect for fire." There was a sound like the pilot light of a gas stove. "They just keep playing with it, and playing with it... until they get burned!"

With a roar, fire surged into one of John's hiding places and he grimaced at the smell of burning napalm. An overwhelming heat filled the room, sweltering and sulfuric. He covered his mouth with one hand and took as deep a breath as he could, then steadied his pistol and fired three shots into the silhouette of the psychotic kidnapper on the other side of the...

Again, things blurred as minutes, maybe an hour of details compressed into flickering images lasting only a second.

Flash-forwarding to NK.B.67: Npggxrz Staa

”Oh good,” the speaker's gravelly voice was distant, a distraction from the ice-cold sensation of metal driven through his heart, “I was getting tired of waiting for the real challenge." A spray of blood burst from his body and John's consciousness faded.

Warning! Further recollection will involve catastrophic events!
Enforcing sanity preservation measures - Access terminated.

The vision ended like a kick to the head, staggering John as blood seeped from his nose. His chest pounded with every frantic heartbeat. John **** his body into motion, digging around in his bag for the roll of gauze to stuff some up his bleeding nostril. The pain faded quickly, but as it went, the borrowed memories he'd seen grew more and more disjointed. The name of the red-goggled doctor faded to a mere 'R.T' and he couldn't place where he'd been or why. Only two things remained clear, a mental image of a metallic beetle with two pinpoints of red for eyes and... the voice. Remembering made John uncomfortable, afraid. It... felt like a warning.

He looked at the main building of the school, noticing for the first time just how quiet things were. It was late enough that virtually every student had left, save the few that toiled away in one of the labs or classrooms. The silence was eerily reminiscent of the theater barrier. John glanced at his inventory, then closed it. He'd leave the optional objective alone, the effort... and potential risks... weren't worth it.

Behind him, fortunately unnoticed, a mechanical scarab crawled across the wall of the theater and into a drainpipe.

The walk home from Ashcroft was a quiet comfort compared to the events of the last few days. John had been so deeply immersed in one struggle after another, with the cavern, Frank, the nightgaunts and then Conroy, that he hadn’t the time to just… breathe. Taking the slow route home cleared his head somewhat and was a soothing bit of fresh air.

John turned on Pike, before the bridge to the Lower Eastside, and took a detour through the old shopping district. Most of the local stores had steadily closed down thanks to the mall at 43rd and Northunder, but a few had held on... including an old bookstore. He'd never been inside, he'd never had a reason to, but it seemed the sort of place that'd have what he was looking for.

When he’d looked up The Master and Margaritas, John had been expecting something more recent than a little known Russian novel from the 1960s. The Abyss Auction had copies, of course, but they didn’t come cheap and John didn’t feel he needed the original. Besides, his mother had always encouraged him to ‘support the local businesses’.

He reached the street corner he’d remembered it being at and looked around. Maybe they’d closed? No wait… there it was, an old-style wooden sign that read: ‘Written in the Stars’. The building it was set into looked ancient, an easy contender for one of the oldest in Springfield. No wonder these places were going out of business.

A bell chimed above the doorframe as he entered the store, the aged oak floor creaked underfoot, and John felt like he'd stepped back two hundred years. Antique bookshelves were built into every wall and stood in haphazard rows across the floor. Towers of books in the window cut off most of the outside light, and lamps hung from the walls, bathing things in a faded orange glow. As far as John could tell, he was the only customer.

Through the shelves, he saw the edge of a desk and picked his way towards it, carefully stepping over a pile of books that had been left on the floor. It wasn't an uncommon feature. The store’s owner was clearly unconcerned with organizing their stock; there were books filling every nook and available cranny. There were stacks atop the shelves, a pile in one corner, and, of course, several sitting open on their desk. Said owner was currently seated, engrossed in reading a small leather-bound journal. She hadn't looked up, so John took the chance to examine her.

Robin Dantès
Level 16 Arcanist
<Miskatonic Alumni>

What’s an ‘arcanist’?

She was a young woman, maybe two or three years older than himself, and her fashion sense matched their surroundings. Robin wore a dark green newsboy cap with cross-stitching along one side, which matched her open coat: a victorian-esque article with rolled up sleeves. To John's surprise, she wore what looked like a leather corset atop a white blouse and a pair of striped leather pants. Her boots were particularly eye-catching, thigh-high and heeled, with brass plating covering both the front and back. She had two analog watches around her right wrist, and a tattoo was partly visible in the nook of her left arm, an ornate 'PL'. Curious.

John was surprised he’d never seen her before, the outfit was beyond niche.

Still unaware or utterly disinterested in his presence, the girl turned another page in her book and brushed some of her messily short, brown hair out of her eyes. It was only when Robin reached over to adjust her desk lamp, a smaller model of the ones along the walls, that she looked up. The bookish girl blinked at him. "What are you doing here?" she asked, as though confused at the sight of someone in her store.

“Uh. You’re open?” was John’s uncertain reply.

The owner placed her book on the desk, atop a small pile of other open volumes, and stood up. She brushed off her pants then crossed her arms, looking at John, "Are you new?"

New? What does she mean ‘new’?

He shrugged, “I haven’t been here before, if that’s what you mean.”

She raised an eyebrow at that and shrugged, sticking out her left hand. John glanced down at her fully exposed tattoo. ‘H. P. L.’ Why was that familiar…

“Robin. Don’t steal anything or try to set the place on fire, and I couldn’t care less who or what you are. We don’t sell grimoires to novices though, so if that’s what you’re looking for then I can’t help,” the girl said casually. Her voice wasn’t quiet, but it lacked any real **** behind it. “Don’t try to steal anything.”

At the mention of grimoires, things clicked. ‘Written in the Stars’ was an actual magic bookstore, and the owner whatever kind of mage an ‘arcanist’ was. Miskatonic University was probably a school of wizardry, like Pigpimples from that one book series. He felt dumb it'd taken him so long to pick up on it. Magic lurked around every corner of Springfield, it seemed. What was next? Was the supermarket run by a shadowy secret society bent on dominating everyone through magical cabbage... or maybe the kindly pirate-obsessed woman that ran the local game store actually was one! At this point, he'd believe anything.

Robin's hand was still outstretched, waiting for him. John shook it, eliciting a tiny smile. "I’m John. I'll keep that in mind," he said.

As soon as their brief introduction was over, Robin instantly settled back into her chair and grabbed a different book from her desk. She wasn’t much for conversation, apparently.

While the shopkeep engrossed herself in 'Metamorphosis Theophrasti Paracelsi', John browsed the shelves. Antique volumes of all sorts were scattered about: history, alchemy, theory of magical energies, runic languages... They weren't spellbooks in the traditional sense, but John wondered what secrets they contained. None of the books had price tags.

Several minutes of searching revealed that there was no method to the store's madness. Nothing was in alphabetical order, or in any conceivable order at all! A copy of 'Faust' was bordered by what looked like handwritten notes on the power of magic circles and a modern-looking book titled 'Nicholas Flamel, Man or Mystery?'. The variety was fascinating, and John felt he could browse for hours… but there was a specific novel he’d come here to buy.

"Hey, sorry to bother." John said, approaching Robin, "Do you happen to have a copy of The Master and Margaritas?"

Robin didn't look up from her book, but pointed at a towering pile in one corner.

"Thanks."

John approached the stack, looking up at the two or three feet of books that were piled above him. It practically reached the ceiling and he wasn’t entirely comfortable with how many heavy volumes loomed overhead. He ran a finger along the spines and found what he sought halfway up, The Master and Margaritas by Mikhail Bulgakov. Perfect! Now he only had to figure out how to extract it.

The teetering structure swayed a bit when he touched it and the book he wanted was low enough that trying to yank it free would probably bring some of the heavy looking tomes at the top tumbling down. John bit his lip and thought. In all the videos of stage magic he’d seen; the trick was speed. If he pulled it out fast enough, the rest should stay standing.

He touched the spine of the book and it vanished into his inventory. Instantly, three things happened. The shop shook with a quiet rumble, Robin’s head snapped up from her reading and she gave him an angry glare, and John’s body froze. No matter how he struggled, he couldn’t move even a finger, and the book pile was looking on the verge of collapse. One volume fell from the top of the tower and barely missed him, landing to the side with a loud thud. That was all it took for the rest to begin sliding.

Robin gestured in his direction and the avalanche of books halted, instead levitating to either side to form two, smaller piles. John breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short lived when the shopkeep closed what she was reading and set it on her chair. She walked towards him, heels clicking menacingly.

"I told you, no stealing. Give it back," Robin demanded, thrusting out a hand. The gesture broke whatever spell was restraining him, and John almost tripped as his body returned to his control. He pulled the book out of his inventory and handed it to her. The girl's annoyed expression faded instantly, replaced with mild concern as she dusted off the cover.

"I was hoping to buy that, actually. It was just stuck, and I was trying to avoid..." he gestured at the haphazard stacks of books on either side, “this?”

Robin looked at him, then at the volume in her hands, then back at him, "Fifteen dollars."

It was less than a quarter of the cheapest one on the auction and John readily pulled out his wallet. He reached inside, a twenty materializing out of his funds. Robin accepted the note and handed him the book, before turning around to walk back to her desk. She opened a drawer in the side and pulled out a handful of assorted coins. He recognized some, like a few 1983 quarters and a Canadian half-dollar, but there was also what looked like a gold doubloon and some of Moira’s rose-stamped wealth...

"Keep the change," he said. It wasn't a big expense at this point, and he didn't want to have to deal with five dollars in miscellaneous currency.

Robin shrugged and swept all the coinage back into the drawer. Then, she took her usual place and resumed reading, but paused almost immediately to look at John, "Anything else?"

Is there?

He looked around the store, at the hundreds of aged titles and strange volumes... "Yeah, a few things. What do you have on medicine?"

John kept his purchases in his hands until he left the store, only transporting them to his inventory when the door to 'Written in the Stars' closed behind him. In addition to the book that had lured him into the place, he'd spent seven hundred dollars on two additional texts. The Basics of Transmutation and A Modern Prometheus: Dr. Frankenstein's Analysis of the Human Form. A week ago, that expense would've been ludicrous... but John had checked the titles on the Abyss Auction; the price Robin had asked for them was absurdly cheap in comparison. All in all, it’d been a productive stop. He’d have to come back sometime.