Welcome to the Abyss

Could “Daryl” be trusted? He seemed friendly enough – as friendly as one's captor could ever seem.

John hesitated to answer. A worried knot tightened in his guts.

Daryl, for his part, maintained a healthy distance and allowed John to take his time. After a few moments of silence, the man began to wander about the surrounding junk, occasionally stopping to give something a testing prod with his foot.

‘Maybe Observe can give me some insight. I really should have checked if my system panels appear in mirrors before I left. Will he be able to see it? Will he be able to sense it if he can’t? Would he care either way?’

John, **** for reassurance, took the risk and cast Observe. As the window appeared before him, he **** himself to look past it and searched for any reaction to its appearance.

Daryl seemed totally unphased. He either did not see it or feigned ignorance of it well. Semiconfident that his Skill went unnoticed, John scanned over the man’s description.

The knot unfurled. John took in a deep breath, held it a moment, and shakily exhaled. “Fine,” he projected, pulling his captor’s attention back to him. “I’m new. Would you mind explaining why you trapped me in this… whatever we’re in?”

“Wouldn't mind at all,” he cheerily replied. “This is an Illusion Barrier, a little extra dimensional space we Abyssals, magical folk like you and I, use to hide our goings on from the world. See, using or talking about magic in the presence of mundane folk is a big taboo in the eyes of the Almighty. I popped this one up so we could chat without risking a smiting.”

“Hold on, the Almighty, as in the Christian God, is real and he smites people for using magic?”

“Pretty much, but She’s known as Gaia in the Abyss, or the Lady if you’re feeling particularly reverential. Also, the punishment really depends on how obvious the magic is. Little stuff, like sketchy card tricks, probably just gets you a few days of bad luck. Big stuff, like throwing fireballs around, that gets you smote.”

‘I’m really glad Mom wasn’t home this morning,’ John thought to himself. “I guess I should thank you. I might have gotten myself killed if you hadn't stepped in. I’m John, by the way.”

“Nice to meet ya, John. Course, you already know my name.” Daryl tapped the patch on his chest. “Now, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of questions about all this, but I’d really appreciate it if you answered a couple of mine before asking any of yours.”

“I guess I can do that, sure. Do you mind if I continue breaking this engine down?”

“Go on ahead,” he responded with an encouraging wave. “How long have you had your magic? I can’t imagine you’ve been wandering around for years just casting away without a care in the world.”

“I, uh, just woke up with them this morning, actually.”

“And you’re what, fourteen? fifteen?”

“I’m eighteen. What makes you think I'm fifteen?”

“Well, you got a lankiness to you like you grew a foot taller over summer and aint filled out yet, and that’s about the age that that happened to me. But eighteen, that’s pretty late to awaken to the Abyss.”

“Is that significant?”

“I mean, kinda sorta. It makes you a Late Bloomer, and they always awaken to the Abyss with really weird abilities. Like, most Abyssals are born with innate abilities that make them better than average at something, but the innate abilities of Late Bloomers can flat out break the known rules of magic. They usually don’t last very long though. They either blow themselves up, get themselves smote, or worse.”

“What could possibly be worse than two different flavors of horrible ****?”

“Little dude, **** is a ‘get out of jail free’ card when the alternatives are being subjected to tortuous experimentation or various forms of slavery.”

“That’s not comforting,” John grunted. The last bolt securing the head refused to give way. His wrench was simply too short to provide sufficient leverage.

“You shouldn’t worry too much about it. Springfield is relatively safe as far as that stuff goes. You need a hand over there?”

“I got it.”

John snatched a bent piece of tube steel, a set of handlebars in its past life, from a nearby heap and slid it over the handle of the wrench, more than tripling its effective length. Bracing the engine with his foot, he gripped the pipe firmly in both hands and pulled back slowly.

‘Don’t slip. Don’t slip. Don’t slip,’ he chanted in silent prayer.

The stubborn bolt still resisted and creaked contemptuously as its head threatened to shear from its body. With a final groan, it surrendered its hold. The sudden lack of resistance momentarily unbalanced John causing him to stumble into a nearby scrap heap.

“Ya good?” Daryl called over in response to the clatter. John responded only with a raised thumbs up before hurriedly freeing his prize and reducing it to a sizable sum of scrap iron. “I suppose my next question is what are you doing out here?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask what my innate ability is.”

“I kinda figured that they were the same question.”

“Fair point. Well, my powers seem to work on video game logic. Everything I do gets converted into Skills which then get stronger the more I use them. Most of them are just passive effects, but this one lets me convert items into raw materials or other items.”

John presented one of the motor’s liberated pistons. The item disappeared in a flash of pale, blue light, replaced a moment later by an obelisk-esque iron spike.

Daryl gave a low whistle as he took the spike. “That’s pretty advanced stuff for your first day. What do you plan to do with it?”

“I don't really know. I didn’t have a lot of ideas at first. I was just going to power level the Skill and figure out a plan when I had more options.”

Daryl hummed as he turned the spike over in his hand. “Well, it just so happens that I’m an artificer myself. So, if you’re looking for suggestions, I might have a couple.”

“I think I might appreciate the help.”

Excitedly, Daryl tossed the spike back to John. “Right, first things first. We gotta move this conversation to a more appropriate locale. Now, to exit an Illusion Barrier just raise a fist in the air and focus your mind on leaving.”

Doing as instructed, John was ejected from the barrier and met by the sounds of the world and the caress of the breeze, the absence of both having gone unnoticed. Their return was followed closely by Daryl’s reappearance in the mundane world and a notification.

New Skill Obtained: Instant Dungeon (Level 1)

“Now, to enter an existing barrier–”

“Is it normal for Illusion Barriers to contain monsters?”

Befuddlement contorted Daryl's face. “No, that basically never happens, unless you include Natural Barriers, but as the name implies, people don’t create those. Why do you ask?”

“I just got a Skill that opens a Barrier that may contain monsters whose strength scales with my Level.”

“Well shit, forget what I was about to say, because I have got to see this. Crack one of those suckers open.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I don’t have any combat magic or equipment. If they’re hostile, I wouldn’t have a way to defend myself.”

“Relax, little dude. If I can keep you locked in a barrier, then I’ve got to be stronger than you. If the monster’s scale with your Level, then they’ve to be weaker than me. The moment I hop in there, I’ll take control of the barrier. If it seems too dangerous, I’ll kick us both out.”

“Well, I guess that makes sense. Here goes nothing.” John cast the spell and disappeared from the scrap yard.

Daryl raised his fist into the air and pressed his will against John’s new Barrier.

But the Barrier pushed back, rejecting his entry.

“Oh… That can’t be good.”