The Band Mates Shared An Amused Look

Apparently, John’s surprise was amusing, as Jenny cracked a playful smile, quickly followed by her band mates.

Keith once again let out a loud laugh and wouldn’t be stopped by either of the ladies in the room. Not that either was going to, as even Joan cracked a smile at that.

“Hoo, lad, you’re in for it,” Keith commented, as a tear slipped from his eye as he did everything he could to hold back the laughter, “Jenny, he’s a keeper.” Joan hit Keith on the arm, and he slowly stopped.

John felt more out of the loop than ever, and thankfully, his amusing, confused face stopped being the topic for discussion when Joan spoke up.

“So this is the mystery man, how did you two meet anyway?” The color drained from John’s face as he looked at Keith, who was suddenly serious.

Thankfully, Jenny seemed to have thought ahead, as without missing a beat she replied; “Well, Johnny over here saw a guy getting too handsy with me and put him in his place. After that, he helped me up, and we had a coffee.”

“What a perfect gentleman,” Joan replied, as if he wasn’t there. Thankfully, she seemed to have missed his expression when she asked her question.

“Hey, lay off of him, he’s alright,” Keith replied, sparing John a wink, “besides, there aren’t enough people like him today. Could be a little taller, though.”

“Sage words coming from the leprechaun with Gigantism,” Joan replied, to which the response was more of Keith’s uproarious laughter.

“Well, consider this mood totally ruined,” Jenny whispered into John’s ear before shifting off of his lap, draping his arm around her shoulder. This left John with an erection that strained his pants, and he shifted his legs to try to hide it. Either nobody took notice, or they were too polite to make light of the situation.

“Well, if you’ve earned Keith’s prestigious acceptance, I won’t be the one to stop you.” Apparently, the approval of her band mates was very important, though it seemed like Joan hadn’t been with this one very long.

“Well, we’ll take care of this later, for now, I’ve got something to show ya, Johnny,” Jenny said, running her hand over his tented pants before abruptly standing up.

“I’ll… see you guys later then,” John stuttered out a reply as he was pulled out of the room by Jenny.

“So what’s going on?” he asked as they entered into the dark alleyway.

“Well, as one of the most active cities in Abyssal America, there are a ton of barriers that let you in one place and out somewhere else. Check it out,” she pulled him further into the alleyway, and the air shifted as they entered a barrier.

Entered Barrier! (Cost: 0 mp)

Achievement Unlocked: Traveller

• Enter a barrier on purpose.
• You may now Observe a barrier to learn its name, level, and population

That was certainly useful. John cast Observe on the barrier out of curiosity.

Unnamed Barrier

Level: ?

Population: 2

So they were the only ones in it, that was useful knowledge. Casting Observe on it was met with yet another achievement.

Achievement Unlocked: Spy

• Successfully Observe something more than ten times your level. Using a barrier is kind of cheating, but I was lazy writing the rules for this one.
• You may upgrade Observe to Spy!

Skill Upgrade: Spy, Level 1, Cost: 0 mp

Observe, but if the target is unaware they're being watched, the chances of success increase sharply. If Spy is a higher level than the target, the chances of them noticing they’ve been Spied is 0%.

[Accept]/[Decline]

He quickly tapped accept, as that seemed like it had nothing but upsides. Also, being able to gather information about barriers was seriously useful. Hopefully, he’d be able to know more as the skill leveled up.

He was broken out of his trance by Jenny waving a hand in front of his face.

“Dude, what’s up? You were just staring off into space for like, two minutes,” John wondered how exactly he would explain… anything about his powers to Jenny. He figured he’d start with Spy.

“Well, one of my spells lets me see information about people, items, and now barriers, apparently. I just got an upgrade that makes it more secretive,” he explained but immediately wanted to smack himself. Saying ‘apparently’ would just lead to more questions.

She started walking and pulled him along as they slowly made their way through the alleyway barrier. “So from what I can tell, you just recently got your… abilities. How do you know so many spells in such short a time? How do they upgrade on their own? I wanna know what your ability says about me too, by the way,” she finished talking as they reached the edge of the alley, “but first, let’s get out of here.”

He exited the barrier with her and noticed they were now in the residential section of the town, not too far from his house actually. “That’s so cool! How many of these are there?” he asked, looking around to confirm that they were where he thought.

Re-entering! (10s)

“I know about fifteen, Keith knows about twenty. I’m assuming he gave you a threatening talk because he seemed to like you,” she laughed at the expression he made, and that was enough of an answer for her. “He always does stuff like that. He doesn’t really mean most of it; besides, he may be older and more experienced than you, but he knows practically zero combat magic. I could probably beat him in a fight.”

That was relieving, but he wondered where the other ones were. As if she read his mind, she continued, “I’ll show you a few of the other ones, but lots of them are private. One by the school is pretty useful though. You’ll find them yourself eventually.”

“For now, there’s one last thing I wanted to do tonight. Here,” Jenny held out a small vial with an appealing blue liquid, “Keith owed me a favor, and I owed you a favor, so he’s paying you back for me.” He used Spy on the small vial and learned it was a permanent enhancement potion of sorts.

Draconic Enhancement Potion

Rare Item. A concoction made of powdered Lesser Dragon scales and crushed Gryphon beak. Will provide a substantial boost to physical stats and will temporarily provide a boost to reflexes. Tastes terrible. Seriously, good luck keeping this down.

He looked at the item with reverence and immediately put it in his inventory. This elicited a raised eyebrow from Jenny, but it seemed like she was done with questions for the night.

“Make sure you text me later, I want whatever explanation there is for a newbie like you having so many abilities. Until then, this is my stop.” With that, she disappeared completely. He assumed into a barrier, but he couldn’t find any to enter.

That’s weird, I guess it’s too high a level or something, he considered texting her then but decided that might seem kind of clingy. That potion is something else… I wonder if I’d get the positive effects even if I puke it back up… He decided that was a problem for later and changed directions, heading toward his house.

Though it was quite late at night, he wasn’t tired at all. He wondered if this was a side-effect of Gamer’s Body and decided to experiment for the night. That left one question.