Time to reflect.

Due to the chaotic schedules of Ashcroft's students, the main courtyard was always full of a dozen or so people lounging around the benches or studying in the shade of the central tree. It was one of the spaces available for the less sports-oriented during free periods and, importantly, a public space. With everything that'd happened in the last day, John felt safer with other people around.

Erica wouldn't be arriving for a bit, so he thought about what'd happened in math class. The... event had started when he'd picked up a new ability, so the first thing John did was check out that ability's description.

Planning ~ 1
Improves the Gamer's analysis of future situations and information recall. Allows for the access of ?v???s ???? ?l????a?? ???el????.
Skill Corrupted: Standard activation unavailable. Please reinstall and reboot reality to repair this error.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit!

This was getting absurd. First, yesterday's mishap with the Lovecraft book and now this? Something was clearly wrong with the Game, and the Developer either didn't care or was too busy trying to fix the errors to bother letting him know. He felt like a beta tester with no way to file complaints or bugs.

Either way, he now had a glitched skill that apparently... did what?

John focused on the fragments of memory the experience had left him with. He remembered going to the junkyard outside of town... to work on making some armor. That didn't quite make sense, he'd made armor last night and never once had thought of going to a junkyard to improve it. Stranger still, in the memory he had a completely different set of abilities. A saber instead of a whip, some kind of Magic Bolt instead of Rend. He tried to think back, to put himself in those unfamiliar shoes again... but remained firmly grounded in his own. Clearly, he couldn't use Planning at will.

There was no obvious explanation for what'd happened, but between the skill's description and the strange memories he had a guess. He'd seen the future. Except that didn't explain the difference in skills. There was something else important too...

Rewinding back to the start of the first memory fragment, a single thing stood out against the rest: he'd used a spell to create a Barrier. Things clicked. This was what the vision, whatever it was, had wanted to show him. It was possible to learn how to create Barriers, and if he could do that... then he could pick fights with monsters.

A plan began to form. First, John needed to figure out how he'd made a Barrier. It was unlikely that he could only do it in the junkyard, so that was probably irrelevant. He'd ask Erica, she might know how. Once he acquired the needed skill, he could grind on whatever was in it, getting valuable loot and experience. It would probably be a good idea to ask Erica to accompany him with that too, provided he could trust the berserker. He could offer to split the rewards as an incentive, if that was even possible. That should complete his daily quest, and he'd be free to look into what a Combat Style was or what Factions were. Again, Erica might know something...

For all the trouble the skill had given him, it'd done its job. He'd rather skip the nosebleed and headache though.

"You're early. Honestly, I thought you'd leave me hanging," a female voice broke into his thoughts. John looked up to see Erica standing in front of him. "You looked pretty panicked on the bus, mind if I sit?" He gestured in the affirmative and she settled in comfortably next to him, stretching languidly. It was hard not to stare. "Eyes are up here, man," she nudged him and pointed at her face, but was grinning, "can't blame you, though."

Erica nudged him and then continued, "So, mind if I ask a few more questions?"

"Not really, but I have a few of my own."

"Fair. How about we trade off?" she grinned as John accepted her proposal with a nod. "Cool, since you indulged my curiosity on the bus you can go first. What do you want to know?"

Time to put the plan into action. "Do you know how to create an Illusion Barrier?" John immediately regretted asking as Erica gave him a strange look. "The skill I have that lets me see people's titles said that was what we were trapped in yesterday," he elaborated.

"Oh, you mean copying one of Yggdrasil's Branches. I don't personally know how to open the Way myself, but I can show you how to use an open connection if that helps."

Well that wasn't the answer that John wanted, but it was better than nothing. "Your turn."

"So, what can you actually do?"

They traded information for half the period, though John kept a few things to himself and could tell Erica did the same. He never mentioned Call to Void or Shroud of Stars, and she never once made a reference to the status effect he'd seen the day before, Aurora's Grasp. Apparently, his experiences with the Barrier weren't entirely unprecedented. When 'the Way to Yggdrasil' was opened, she explained, sometimes it grabbed anyone with power nearby... or worse, a civilian. It was even possible the recent disappearances were the result of illegally opened Barriers.

He also learned a bit about her: Erica had been raised as a member of the 'secret world' that he'd joined and currently worked as a free-agent for a local branch of an organization called "The Order of the Golden Rose". When he mentioned seeing the same note on Moira's title the day before, she looked a bit surprised, but promised to connect them. They were similar to magic 'police' and focused on protecting people from the monsters that lurked in the Abyss. The reason she'd been in the Barrier the day before was to act as a sort of clean-up crew, purging it of dangers before someone like him accidentally wandered in.

The conversation naturally flowed to her abilities, and John was surprised by what he learned. Erica utilized a mixture of Nordic rune-spells and martial skills. Contrary to what he assumed from her title, she didn't completely lose herself to rage and was fully capable of distinguishing friend from foe, but did enter a form of battle trance. She described it as a kind of pain-suppression mixed with self-hypnosis to allow her to better wield her axe. When the question was flipped, she laughed out loud as John admitted his choice in weapon.

"A whip? Dude, you really don't like the easy approach, do you?" she nudged him and elicited a blush. "Should've just gone with the sniper. I mean... aim, click, boom. Headshot."

It turned out that Erica played games herself, favoring first-person shooters, and they debated the quality of Draft: Future Battles and Warzone: 3 for a bit. Eventually, they settled into a bit of a game.

"So, what about her? She looks strong," Erica asked, pointing across the courtyard at a muscular girl with blonde hair.

"Level seven. She's got a title though, 'Ashcroft's Ogre'," he winced, "that's a bit rude."

"No kidding. Whoever writes those is harsh. What about... him?"

John looked in the new direction, she was indicating a scrawny nerd, not unlike John himself. "Level three." At least he was a level higher.

"Boring. Next."

"Hey!" John protested but was silenced when Erica rolled her eyes at him.

"Dude, you get bullshit magic, you don't get to complain." she said.

John had to admit that she had a point.

"What about... ugh. Her." Erica pointed to an all too familiar face that was surrounded by her flock of cheerleaders.

"Vanessa? Level 6. You'll love this though. Her title is 'Bitch Queen'."

Erica burst out into laughter, loud enough for Vanessa's clique to look over in their direction. The bitch herself seemed enraged, either due to seeing the target of her bullying interacting with someone or from the way Erica was laughing and pointing at her. Vanessa got up and sauntered over, her groupies following and forming a circle around the bench that Erica and John were sitting on.

"Look who it is, the little faggot and the barbarian. Even for you, I expected better taste," she addressed Erica and completely ignored John.

"Well if it isn't Vanessa Whorethorn. How's life in Castle Bitch? It looks like you bought a couple new friends since the last time you tried to pull this."

John looked back and forth between the two, clearly they had a history, and it sounded not that dissimilar to his own. To confirm his suspicions, Erica leaned over.

"She's in my drama class," she whispered, as though that explained anything.

Vanessa's face had turned pink, and John felt deeply uncomfortable being this close to the bully. When she spoke, it came out as a hiss, "My family can destroy you."

Erica stood up, and both John and Vanessa remembered just how tall the Norwegian girl was. "I don't care who your family is or what they can do," her voice had dropped to a low growl, "come at me yourself if you've got the guts, or shut the fuck up, Princess." The nickname seeped with vitriol, and Vanessa took a step back.

The bully tried to stutter out a response but went quiet as Erica stepped forward into the space she'd made and raised an eyebrow. Vanessa muttered something John couldn't hear and then, to his surprise and the astonishment of her clique, turned and walked away. She tried to swagger, or at least make it look like she was in control. To John, it just looked comical.

Erica turned around, a smug grin plastered on her face, and John couldn't help but grin back at her. "That felt good."

The sound of a ringing bell shattered the momentary satisfaction, and the students all around began packing up and heading back to class. John got up from the bench, remembering the original reason he'd met with the berserker girl.

"Hey, you said you had my bag?"

"Oh, yeah. Kinda forgot about that. It's still in my locker..." she winced and reached into her pocket to pull out her phone. "I'll give you my number, text me at lunch or something and I'll get it to you."

Achievement Unlocked! - "1-800-LOVE"
Get a girl's number, where might this lead?
+1 Libido