The Pillar of Obsidian

Hiding behind a rock from some random girl may have felt undignified but it was probably the safe bet. Mark had no idea what this girl could do, aside from apparently stop the wind and make reality lose some of it's color. Best to not spook her. The woman still faced away from him, wearing an open black jacket with no hood. She removed a pair of earbuds from one of the pockets and began to tap her foot to whatever music she decided to play. It probably shouldn't have been a surprise, then, when she stated to sing.

"Come with me now. Come with me now."

Her voice trailed off at the end of every line, in a way that projected confidence rather than vulnerability. It was pleasant to the ears, if not from one accustomed to singing. As the beat of the song seemed to get into full swing, a pillar of stone rose from the sand in front of her, narrow but with pieces extending from it at right angles.

"I need to move. I need to fight. I need to lose myself tonight."

Her words came across like dying embers, ready to reignite some old anger with the smallest bit of kindling. It looked like something straight out of a Kung Fu movie, the way she struck the structure. It was divided into three sections and each one was capable of spinning around, so she attacked and blocked almost interchangeably. Cracks began to form in the structure as she went through the motions, culminating in a palm strike that ended up shattering the upper half of the thing. As the pieces splintered away from her, she shouted, "Dammit! It was just getting good!"

Mark had risen a bit to get a better view without realizing. He watched her in awe. She had just broken stone with her bare hands like it was a cheap plate.

"Holy shit," he said, the words slipping past his lips before his mind realized.

The green haired girl immediately turned to face him, his surprise at that immediately being followed by the air leaving his lungs by **** as something smashed against his ribs.

-25 HP

He lay on his back, reeling from the impact and groaning. He swore he felt a few ribs break but it didn't hurt to breathe at least. The view of washed out sky was quickly replaced by green hair, amber eyes, and a scowl. Her knee pressed on his chest and Mark did his best to not put up resistance. This woman just hit him for over a third of his HP bar, he didn't want to give her a reason to drain the rest.

"Friendly, friendly," he said as he showed his hands, his voice coming out hoarse.

Her back foot moved slightly and rock closed around his wrists and ankles like manacles.

"Unless you want to learn what blood-soaked sandstone tastes like, start talking. Who the hell are you?"

"My name is Mark Mason, I work at an insur-" He was cut off as her knee pressed into his chest harder.

"Cut the shit 'Mark'. Pretending to be a mundane inside the Zone? You don't really think I'm that stupid, do you?"

A spike of rock appeared next to his head and she grabbed it, breaking the tip off and pointing it at him.

"Talk."

Panic, pure and simple, filled his mind as the tip of the sandstone icepick pointed at his eye. He began to stammer, "I only j-just got these powers today! I was just going for a run!"

"A Drifter? You really expect me to believe that?"

"I don't know what that is but yes? Maybe?"

That seemed to give her pause for a moment. "You're either an idiot who doesn't know when to drop the act or you're actually clueless." She eased up a little on his chest, adding, "fine, tell me what you can do. If you try anything, you're getting stabbed in the eye."

"Got it, staying still." He took a breath, trying to steady himself before he continued. "Like I said, I only got them when I woke up. I have video game powers. I have windows that show me stuff like my stats and HP."

"Well, that makes it nice and easy. If you can do what you say, open a window."

"Uhh... I can try, but people don't seem to be able to see them," he said as he opened a window. Because of how close she was, the window was closer to his face in order to fit between them. When she showed no reaction, he started to sweat. "Well, it's open. Let me try s-see if I can..." For the first time, he opened the cog in the top right of the page, looking for a solution to his problem. Aside from options for appearance, like opacity, color, and size, he found a checkbox that came on by default. "It looks like I have to add you to a party for you to see it. You aren't going to stab me if I try, right?"

"Hmm... Not this time, I don't think. Go ahead M&M, I won't bite your head off just yet."

Mark went to try and issue what he assumed would be another mental command when it struck him that he didn't know this girl's name. Flicking his eyes up, he saw her nametag.

Imara Ingram
Level 14 Geo-kinetic
Pillar of Obsidian

He saw the window appear before her, the same styling as his own. She jumped slightly as it appeared and seemed to read it before tapping **Accept**. After she did, another set of bars popped into existence, along with her name, in the upper left corner of his vision.

"I'll be damned. You've got something unique at least. I'll be nice and let you up, I guess." As she spoke the last part, the stone keeping his ankles and wrists bound to the floor sunk back into the earth and she tossed the rock spike aside She stood back up and offered him a hand, helping Mark back to his feet as well as letting him get a better look at her.

Her hair was about shoulder length and was colored like moss, or maybe seaweed. She was on the tanner side and in spite of her earlier skill with martial arts, her build didn't seem to be one of someone constantly active. She was clearly strong and had muscle to her but she didn't have the toned physique required for it to really show through. In contrast to her bright eyes, her top was a cool shade of purple, the crop top showed off her stomach and plenty of cleavage. All of that combined, Mark suddenly regretted having on loose-fitting sweatpants.

"So, do you want me to explain some stuff that might help you not die or do you wanna keep staring at my boobs? You can stare at them after the literally life saving advice if you want, but I need you to be a gentleman for long enough to get through this."

He hadn't even realized he'd been checking her out. Snapping his eyes back up to hers, he found her smiling instead of any kind of angry expression.

"Sorry, I just... Uhh... No real good excuse there, huh?"

"Nope. But I won't hold it against you too much. You said you woke up this morning with these game powers, right? Probably best to assume you don't know your ass from your elbow." She turned to the side and stomped before raising her arms from hip height to shoulder height, elbows tucked in close and fists facing her. This motion netted them a fairly solid looking stone bench, which she then sat on. "Might as well get comfortable."

Mark did sit down on the newly formed bench, questions coming to his mind that he wanted to ask. "I guess start from the beginning. Before today, I thought magic was something for books, stage tricks, and card games."

She nodded along with him. "Might not be the best teacher but I'll share what I know. There's three big things you absolutely need to know to start with. First and foremost, don't do anything supernatural in front of normal people. God will get really angry and might decide that was your last mistake. Gaia's intense like that. Second, don't trust just anyone. A lot of people aren't half as nice as me and you'd pray for **** if they caught you. Last is Grave Zones. You're in one now. Anyone can create a Grave Zone but if you try to make one where one already exists, you'll enter that one instead. Any questions?"

"Several, actually. But first... why did you call me M&M earlier?"

"Initials mostly. Thought the nickname was funny. Why, not a fan?"

"More just never been given a nickname before. Feels weird I guess." He shrugged, unsure if he liked it because it sounded nice or because a cute girl had given it to him. "Anyways, other questions. Who exactly is this Gaia? You called her God?"

"Probably the closest thing you can think of. I don't know a ton about her, other than pissing her off is a bad idea 'cause she's really strong."

"OK, I guess that makes sense... What about this Grave Zone thing? How do you make one? How can you tell if one's there?"

"I'll show you when we're done. We'd have to leave this one for me to show you. For your other question, a lot of it is just knowing. Like, I know there's one around the mall that acts like a big market but you're barking up the wrong tree for anything high level. I know my stuff and some basics."

"Good to know about the mall. What groups should I watch out for?"

"The easier question is who not to. There's a few big names you can generally trust. The Flotilla is probably the most influential. They're a bunch of sailors that go around and sell stuff. There's inland bases set up for them in big cities too. Think of them like a magic flea market. They sell everything from normal things to clothes with magic to even people."

At that, Mark felt the need to interrupt. "Wait, people? As in living, breathing people?"

"Yep. Don't have to be breathing either, plenty of sickos who will buy bodies. Shady as some parts of it are, it's good to have access to it. Heard some ghost stories about necromancers but I've never seen one, so..." She shrugged after trailing off. "The other two are the Wardens and the Reef. The Wardens go around to find old Grave Zones to close them and kill any monsters that show up inside. The Reef all work as doctors help lots of people"

Marks ears perked up at that part. "The Reef as in Reef Health and Services?"

"Yea, that's them. They work on both sides of things, helping everyone. One of, like... actually, they might be the only one just out to do good because they can. Only one I know of anyways." She took a second to brush some hair over her shoulder before continuing. "Got a question for you now. Anything else you can do besides the windows? Not every day you meet a Drifter, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious."

"I, uhh, get quests to do stuff. My first one was about doing my morning routine. I also have this." Mark opened up the skill window for Air Alignment and let her read it.

"Quests sound fun, even if that one is boring. Maybe it works like a reverse fixer. This, though, this is weird. You're an aeropotent."

"That sounds oddly specific. That's... what, power of air?"

"If that's how you wanna think about it. It means you make yourself stronger with wind magic. The other two big categories are kinetics and mancers. Kinetics trend towards power and speed while mancers are better at finesse and precision. Cleaver versus scalpel, kinda."

"Why is it weird I'm a aeropotent? It's not all that strong."

"It usually takes a long time to learn to use any kind of magic you aren't born with. Your Affinity is your weird game bullshit, being an aeropotent on top of that feels tacked on."

"Well, I didn't wake up with that one. I got it when I had to run to work."

She went quiet for a second, taking that in. When she was done processing, she looked him square in the eye and said, "OK, that's some weapons grade bullshit, then. Do you have any idea how long it would take me to learn something like that? If I was good at it, about a month for the most basic of shit. You're saying you learned how to do that by going for a run?"

"Uh... yea?" Mark didn't really know what to say to that. He really didn't know what to say when she started laughing hysterically.

Between bouts of laughter, she seemed to manage a few words but it seemed like utter nonsense to him. When she calmed down, she wiped at her eye. "Fuck, I needed that laugh. Alright, twinkle toes, I think that's enough info dumping. You even managed to keep your eyes on my face the whole time, good on you! Just try not to stare at them too much now, 'kay? Too much of a good thing can be bad for you. I hear it makes hair grow on your eyes."

He felt his face turning red when he realized what she was talking about, looking away from her which only seemed to get him another laugh.

He did as she instructed, hands raised up and facing upwards. When he mentally made the effort to leave, the world around him began to regain its color and shift subtly, the familiar hum of street lights returning, along with the wind. A moment later, Imara appeared next to him.

"Good job, basic instructions followed. Now, let's see if you can do the reverse. Similar deal, hands up but facing each other this time." As she spoke, she demonstrated the motions, hands rising to the sky yet again. "Next, try and focus your Mana between your hands. After that, you pull your hands apart." She brought her hands down in an overhead arch, waiting for Mark to try.

He followed the steps as best he could, digging into his core to tap into that paradoxical feeling. Focusing it was rather intuitive, a tingle filling his palms and fingers. As he brought his hands out and down as she had, the world's color faded along with its form. Instead of the surroundings he and Imara had been in before, they were met with tall trees and undergrowth. The air was hot and muggy, the sounds of insects buzzing all around and the sun shining brightly overhead.

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