Talking with Mia

During the next two periods, I continue to level craft and think about my conversation with Mia. She’s certainly an interesting person. A little abrupt but straightforward, as far as I can tell. I finally get the popup after a long hour of levelling craft, only using the spell on the same piece of paper that I’ve already used.

The level probably increases quicker if I use more complicated materials, but I don’t want to risk creating something with the skill that I can’t explain. At least this way, I can just say that I’m doing origami if anybody notices. The craft skill level up means I can now make more complex things, for less mana.

The bell rings for break time, and my anxiety kicks in, my stomach dropping in apprehension of the coming conversation, both because I suck at being social and because the idea of talking to a girl as gorgeous as Mia, makes me nervous. At least the worse effects of my anxiety seem to be staved off, perhaps by magic.

Whatever the case, I’m thankful for it. I make my way out of the classroom and search around for Mia. It doesn’t take long to find her. I walk up to her and feign a confidence that I don’t feel.

“Hey Mia, how was class?” I ask. “Dude, I don’t like Mr Crupp. Mans got issues.” She replies. I laugh, and we start walking to a table out of earshot from anybody else, making small talk. We sit down opposite each other. She looks around, making doubly sure nobody is around before she speaks. “So, do you have any questions about the abyss?” I think for a moment before answering, pleased that this time around, I’m pausing for shorter periods of time.

“Do you know Ms White?” I ask. Mia nods. “She’s an abyssal too, and a pretty powerful one at that.” I nod this time. “What can she do?”

“She can shape shift into any creature that she’s killed, and take on their abilities when she does. I saw her take out a whole gang once cause they wouldn’t leave her alone. It was awesome to watch. Brutal too, she ripped them apart.” I’m suddenly even more thankful that she’s on my side.

“Holy fuck, that’s cool as shit.” I say, cursing to emphasise my amazement. Mia smiles, her eyes lighting up. “Right? Most people I’ve talked to are intimidated by her. I just like her powers.”

“You know, a gang tried to kidnap me today. Ms White protected me.”

“Dude that’s so cool! Well I mean, the attempted **** part isn't, but you get me. What happened?”

“I got pulled into a barrier. These morons came out of nowhere, drinking and swearing. Said they’d get decent price for me. Ms White walked in before they could hurt me, and just straight up told them to leave me alone.”

“What’d they do?”

I snort before replying. “They threatened her.”

“Bet that went down well.”

“Her eyes glowed a sort of…bright green, and one of the girls with them talked to the douche who threatened her. They left immediately once they figured out who she was.”

“Scaredy cats!” Mia laughs, and I can’t help but laugh with her.

The rest of the conversation goes similarly well. Mia is really easy to get along with, and I find myself warming to her quickly. We tell stories, talk about interests and I learn a little more about the abyss.

“There’s all kinds of magic. Basically everything you can think of. There’s people who can make food a little faster, and people who could probably be Scarlet Witch if they had the costume.” “Fuck me, alright then.” Mia giggles at my response. “How do people normally learn new kinds of magic?” I ask, interested in learning as much as I can.

Thinking for a second, she answers. “Wellll, there’s books that can teach you the basics, but normally it’s better to have someone teach you. That way if you’re not doing something right, they can show you how to do it better.” I nod, taking in her response.

The bell rings. “Oh shoot, did we really spend all break talking?” Mia asks rhetorically. I answer anyway. “Apparently so. Sorry for keeping you from your friends.” I apologise. She waves it off. “I’m not very close to them anyway. They’re mundane, and I hang out with them partially to stave off attention. You’re much more interesting.” She replies. I give her a small smile at that.

“I’m going to try training for a while this afternoon, want to join me?” I ask, deciding to take a chance on asking. She considers my offer. “Sure, I’ll be interested to see what you can do.” She replies. “Cool, I’ll meet you by the gates after class is over.” I say. “See you then!” She confirms.

The rest of the day goes by in a blur. I suppose it helps that nothing really interesting is happening. More passive levelling of skills to avoid wasting over generated mana, girl watching when not doing that, and a few different things spinning through my mind.

These powers still feel like a dream, even though I’m 100% sure that it isn’t. I have no idea how far these powers extend or how powerful I can get. Maybe I could one day get to Olivia’s level? That would be a dream. And if the money I made yesterday through training is any indication, I could easily earn a living by just farming low level monsters. Do I even need the degree I’m working towards anymore?

The question echoes around in my mind before I find an answer. Not necessarily but that doesn’t mean it’s a smart idea to suddenly quit. I’ve had these powers for less than 2 days total after all, and I barely have any idea how they work or what to expect in this new world. This might just be some temporary thing? There’s really no way of knowing except to see what happens. My cautious nature wins that debate, and I decide it’s smartest to hedge my bets with my degree and just see what happens with my magic.

Once class ends, I pack up my things and walk to the gate, half expecting that Mia will have either completely forget or lied about coming with me. So I’m surprised when I see her waiting there. “Ready to go?” I ask. “Sure thing, where are we going?” She asks. “I had a spot yesterday down a nature trail, I figure we can go there to train.” I reply. She nods. “Smart, that’ll keep us away from any gangs, so they won’t be able to bust into our barrier.” “What?” I ask. “Sorry, I’ll have to teach you about that.”

“What about creating my own guild? Could I do that?” I ask. The bus rumbles as it accelerates, Mia and I being pressed back slightly into our seats at the sudden movement. “You could do that, but it might be difficult.” “How so?” “You’d need to find a unique name for one. You don’t wanna be usin’ anybody else’s name.”

“When those guys tried to kidnap me, they said their name was the Aussie Dogs, and Ms White said there’s a whole bunch of gangs with that name. Why would there be, if you can’t use another guild’s name?” I ask. Mia shakes her head. “It’s not that ya can’t, it’s better not to though. That way you can get the guild officially registered and recognised by a bunch of abyssal organisations around the world.” “How’s that work?”

“There’s an official registry for the names of guilds around the world. The Abyss Auction, the Healers and the Fateweavers, plus all the guilds in the abyss that have control of any kind of area will recognise your guild as legitimate, which means you can become a player in abyssal politics if you want to, contract services from the non-combat organisations for your guild, and just generally do things in a more legitimate way, if you follow. The gangs around here don’t care about that kind of legitimacy and never use the official way of doing things anyway. They just like the names, so they all like to call themselves names that have already been taken but just sound cool to them.”

“Wait wait hold on, what did you just say? The Abyss Auction, the…?” I ask, trying to follow along as best I can. “The Healers and the Fateweavers, yes. They’re the three great non-combat organisations. They’re guilds dedicated to a particular craft, the Abyss Auction is like Abyssal Ebay, the Healers are exactly that, and Fateweavers are the barrier people.” I nod. “So if you want to use their services, you have to have an officially registered guild?” Mia shakes her head once again.

“You can still use their services but only on an individual level. It’s also much harder to get the services of a Fateweaver for example, on an individual basis, especially if you aren’t registered in an official guild. If you wanted a Fateweaver to put up a reinforced barrier for your guild headquarters for example, ya can’t do that unless your guild is official. The Healers will still see you if you need them, but it’s like the difference between public and private health insurance, if you follow.” I nod, digesting everything she’s just said.

The bus slows down, and it’s time for us to get off. I get up, Mia following me, and I tap my card on the scanner as I get off the bus. She steps down beside me a split second after I’m off. The bus rumbles again and drives away, leaving us in relative silence. I look around quickly and spot the entrance to the trail I went to yesterday. “It’s down there, only a short walk.” I say. Mia nods and we set off. “So apart from the name, what else is difficult about creating your own guild?” I ask.

“Well you generally need a headquarters obviously, if you have a lot of members, and that’s difficult to do around here. It’s difficult to find a spot without getting noticed by any of the probably hundreds of gangs around here. If they notice you, your HQ will probably be broken into, stuff stolen, your guild members beaten up, possibly kidnapped and sold to a mana factory. It can happen any time too, while you’re sleeping especially. Can be hard not to be paranoid, but you get used to it.” I listen to her talk in slightly stunned silence. Life in the abyss sounds really hard.

I voice my thoughts and Mia snorts. “It can be very hard, if you don’t live in the right areas. You get used to the constant danger though, and learn to not worry about it. No use constantly worrying about the threat of **** if the worrying doesn’t let you live, if you follow.” I nod, understanding the need for pragmatism in a world like this. “Anybody ever tell you that you say ‘if you follow’ a lot?” I ask with a small smile. She laughs. “Yeah actually, it’s a bad habit. Are we nearly there yet?”

I lead her around another bend and into the same clearing I trained in yesterday. “We are indeed, here she is.” Mia looks around for a second, nods in satisfaction and speaks. “Great! Looks good. What are we fighting?” I raise an eyebrow. “Can’t you create a barrier with monsters?” I ask. She sighs in exaggerated exasperation, but is unable to keep from cracking a smile.

“So many questions! Not really. It's not very common to be able to make barriers with monsters in them, and the people who can, just do it for the training and combat experience. There's not a whole lot of point otherwise.” I nod my head in understanding. “Fair enough. Let’s see what we get today then.”