The Lion's Den

John smiled as he exited the store and took a deep breath, then blinked as he realised exactly where he was. This was one of his favourite places in Springfield, Meander Alley. It was a series of small roads roughly three-foot across that were enclosed by several stores and businesses.

Meander Alley was home to Orthodox Gaming and Insert Coin Arcade, two of the only places John would go out of his way for. Lucky for him, it was less than a ten-minute walk from home.

He realised it had been a while since he’d been here and decided to walk to the opposite end past Orthodox so that he could tag the bus stop. Walking down he saw the usual stores and walked past “Ye Olde Pub”, the only pub in Springfield that boasted having real pub food from Europe. Continuing down he noticed something strange. One of the stores he never paid attention to was closed down. That wasn’t the part that took him off guard, though, Meander Alley was apparently quite expensive to have a store on. No, what surprised him was a large hot pink sign which had the silhouette of high-heeled boots on each side with “Coming Soon, Felicity’s”. John sighed and smiled remembering the time he and Ellie had spent in her store before shuffling along.

He made his way to the bus stop on the edge of the street and tapped it.

Fast travel location discovered: Meander Alley

John smiled before bringing his phone out to see if any of the other locations he had already been to were closer to Vanessa’s house than where he was right now. Her address was in Scratchwood, which shouldn’t be a surprise since it was a very large gated community where only the rich lived. Lucky for him, a cute blonde’s hotel was only a ten-minute walk there.

John, excited to see what fast travelling was like, tapped onto the bus stop again.

Fast travel locations:

• Lower East Side
• Old Spring Forest
• The Milton Hotel
• Umber Park

He then tapped on The Milton Hotel and received a pop-up.

Travel from your location to The Milton Hotel costs $25
Do you wish to fast travel to this location? Yes | No

“Fuck, really? It costs money to fast travel? Why couldn’t it cost mana? I’d just have to wait for it to regen,” John complained. “Fuck it!”

He hit Yes, his vision went black, and he got a brief moment of vertigo before he was standing in an alley next to a dumpster. Confused, he walked out of the alley to see the bus stop only 4 metres away with a couple of people waiting there.

Shrugging and assuming that he was teleported there so he wouldn’t be seen by anyone around, he looked at the hotel and thought about going to visit Ellie, but not only did he have plans for Vanessa, he’d made a promise to his teacher that he would actually try and help her.

John sighed and began walking. ’Okay, so I think I need a little bit of a game plan. Tomorrow after going to June’s, I need to go into a barrier and make some money. If I ask for one of those full nights rest potion things that Ellie has, then I should be able to go all night. That single barrier gave me $500 in about two hours and I need to make around $5,000. If I say that I won’t get home until like 3 pm tomorrow and make sure I get to Prim before 12, that means that I have around twenty-one hours. But I also have to get to the store too, so maybe more like twenty and a half hours, plus I’ll need to pay to fast travel,’ John thought.

The walk was short, and John was soon standing in front of a large iron gate that was easily twice his height, the thing had flowery patterns as well as spikes on top. John walked over to the keypad and looked down the list. Before finding the Hawthorne Manor his eyes stopped momentarily on Brighton Castle. He shook his head and pressed the buzzer to Vanessa’s.

A moment passed before the soft voice of an older gentleman came through, “Hawthorne residence, how may I help you?”

John cleared his throat. “Hi, uhm, yeah… I’m supposed to tutor Vanessa.”

“Ah yes, the young miss informed me. She may not be happy with your tardiness. Please do come in, I shall await your arrival at the front door,” he said before he hung up the intercom.

The gates creaked open and John headed in. There weren’t all that many houses here, maybe 10 within the walls, though you couldn’t really call them houses. Most of them were mansions, but what caught John’s eye the most was the giant freaking castle that was further walled in at the back. John saw a butler looking guy standing at the door of one of the mansions. It was the biggest of all of them save for the castle.

He walked over and was greeted before the man ushered him inside. “I have informed the young miss of your arrival, and she will be waiting for you in the third study. Just walk up this staircase, turn left and continue to the end of the hallway, the door to the study is the large double door. I apologise for not escorting you, but the lady of the house wishes for me to be elsewhere.”

John smiled. “It’s not a problem, thanks for the help.”

The gentleman nodded and bid farewell to John before walking away. John headed up the stairs and followed the butler’s directions while looking at his phone. As he walked, he accidentally bumped into something that fell to the ground with a thud. His eyes darted up to see a mess of green hair that parted to show a deeply blushing cute face.

“Oh, shit! I’m so sorry, I should have been paying attention, I hope I didn’t hurt you,” John worried.

Alison’s eyes met John’s and her blush deepened. “N-no, I-I mean, i-it’s fine. I-I should have b-been watching where I was w-walking, s-sorry.”

“No, I am the one who should have been paying attention. Here, let me help you up.” John reached out with his hand to help her.

She took hold of his hand, and John pulled her to her feet, but he didn’t realise how light she would be, and after she bumped into his chest, she jumped back. “S-sorry.”

John let out a small laugh. “You don’t have to apologise. I hope you are alright?”

As if she remembered something, she looked up and down the hallway before grabbing John’s wrist and pulling him into a room. He looked around to see it was a bedroom. It wasn’t overly girly but it was obvious that this room was a girl’s, maybe Vanessa’s?

“I-I… Sorry about t-the mess,” she stuttered.

John looked at her in shock. “This is your room?” Alison just nodded while shifting from one foot to the other. “Oh? I didn’t realise you lived here. Are you related to Vanessa or something?”

“N-no, but m-my mom and hers are as close as s-sisters,” she explained.

“Oh, why are you living here then? If you don’t mind me asking,” John said.

“W-well, my parents h-had to move away f-for work and V-Vanessa begged for m-me to be able to s-stay and her mom o-offered for me to live h-here,” Alison managed.

“That makes sense, I guess. I’m sorry I forgot to call about the project, by the way, some unexpected things kind of happened and I didn’t get a chance to, but I promise that we can work on it together soon,” John smiled.

“I-I started writing up, J-June gave m-me some help in the last class. Uhm, I-I have some notes that y-you can look at i-if you’d like?” Alison offered.

“Oh definitely, should make things easier, and I’ll make sure to send any notes I make too,” John awkwardly laughed.

Alison tripped over herself scrambling to her desk. She pulled out several pages and spread them on her bed; John pulled out his phone and took pictures of each page. “Thanks a ton, Alison. I will try and make some notes later on when I get home. Right now, though, I should go meet up with Vanessa. She is probably going to yell at me already and, honestly, I’m not extremely thrilled having to tutor her either,” John admitted; the tutoring was just a means to an end.

“Oh, r-right. I-I did wonder w-why you were here. I t-think it w-would be best if you did h-hurry, Vanessa will probably be c-cranky if you’re late.” She let out a quiet giggle.

John smiled and headed for the door. “Yeah, like she can get much more cranky any time she talks to me. I’ll see you around.” He closed the door behind himself and continued towards the end of the hallway. Looking down he realised just how long it was. It looked like something out of a nightmare or a horror movie, the hall just went on and on.

John pulled his other phone out again and navigated to the chat app he’d been using with Vanessa. Luckily he found what he was hoping for, text drafts, which would make it easy to inconspicuously text Vanessa while sitting right next to her.

He set up several messages in preparation for what he had planned, and by the time he had finished, he was finally at the large double door the butler had mentioned.

He knocked and heard, “Come in,” from the other side. Walking in he saw Vanessa sitting at a large carved desk; it reminded him of the desk in Ellie’s new alchemy study. “How fucking long does it take you to get from school to my house? I have been waiting for almost two hours,” Vanessa barked.

“I had some errands that I had to run before coming here, sorry to keep you waiting,” John explained, rubbing the back of his head. He knew he could just come in guns blazing, but at the same time, taking things slower and continuing to act like the helpless nerd he used to be would be more rewarding.

He closed the door behind himself, and Vanessa huffed, “Fine. Well, let’s get this shit over with then!”

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