...Will Likely Try Again.

John had also eventually fallen asleep, and they both woke up suddenly to the loud clang of one of the doors slamming open. He blearily blinked to clear his eyes, then looked at the cause of the noise. It was Toby.

“Alrighty, which of you fuckers isn’t giving us juice, and why?” He wandered through the rows, checking on the prisoners. Every so often, he’d give one a kick or a slap if they weren’t reacting much, and then smirk when they groaned or grunted. When he reached John, he stopped. “Not so fucking brave now, are you? Little knight in shining armour, you were. But I just bet now that you’d shit your pants if I-” The thug had started leaning closer to John to do something, so John wound up and spat at him. The sadistic little man wiped it away and glared at John with burning eyes, and quietly said, “You’re lucky I’m not meant to hurt the prisoners, kid. If we were back in that alleyway…” He stopped, then smiled and muttered, “Just you wait, shithead. I’ll get you soon enough,” before continuing to move through the rows, now stomping his way around and grumbling.

John realised he was holding his breath and let it go, exhaling quietly, and glanced over at Velvet. The girl was still sleeping somehow, most likely exhausted. Eventually the thug got through all the chairs without stopping, glanced across the room at everyone again, then stomped his way through the other door to some kind of panel. After a moment, there was an, “Aha!” and he called up the stairs, “We’ve got an exhausted one! Bob, gonna need you to move ‘em!”. After a distant indiscernible returning shout, he stomped back over and went to the chair directly in front of John, and flicked some kind of switch to turn it off. Then carelessly undid the restraints, and pulled the prisoner out of the chair. They turned out to be a man, seemingly in his thirties or so. He was so underweight and malnourished that you could visibly count his ribs, and he looked around with a hazy confusion, quickly broken when Toby slapped him.

“Old buddy, old pal, ol’ friend. Can you tell me why you’re not giving us mana anymore, huh? Why is that?” He punched the man in the gut. As he doubled over, Toby followed it up with a cruel knee to the man’s face, then pulled him upright again. “Do you not want us to do well anymore? You’ve been such a good worker so far!” His voice positively dripped with sarcasm, with no small amount of glee making its way out at this. “You-”

“Let’s get this over with already, Toby,” Bob’s booming voice echoed as he walked in.

“Of course! By all means, Bobby!” The glee in his voice was all gone now, replaced by an artificial politeness, and he turned back to the terrified man. “Looksee here. What’s your name?” He leaned to the man’s ear, who gasped out something hoarsely. “Ohh, Eli is it? Well, Eli. I want you to channel some mana. You know how to do that, right?” The newly named Eli nodded, and Bob put some kind of device on the man’s finger. “Go ahead then! Blind me with your power, Eli.”

John watched as he lifted his hand and there was a small, weak, blue light for barely a second, then it went out and nothing else happened. After a minute, Bob grunted out, “He’s dry.”

Toby turned his head slowly back to Eli, a shark’s grin growing on his face, the same one that he’d had for John. “Ohhhh, bad luck, buddy. Seems like you’re all out of mana for us. Still, maybe some enterprising necromancer will get a hold of your corpse, so you might not be totally useless.” He held the man’s shoulders as if consoling him.

That seemed to get through the man’s confused, ****-induced haze of compliance. “D-did you say corp-”

Toby tightened his grip on the man’s shoulders and there was a small spark of light, then Eli went utterly rigid. First there was a buzzing noise, then the smell. As if someone was frying spoiled meat on an electric grill and the distinctive scent of burnt hair. After that followed the shuddering, as if Eli were having some kind of seizure. Toby let go suddenly, and the man crumpled limply to the ground in a pile, with just the slightest bit of smoke rising through the air where he had stood.

With a grunt from the effort, Bob picked up the body, and left. Toby stood staring at John during that, still with that damned smile on his face, and as Bob left, mouthed, “You’re next,” then followed after his partner.

John stared with horror at the patch of concrete where burn marks still lingered from Eli’s skin being dragged across it. He knew it would be a long while until he forgot that when he closed his eyes and it replayed, down to the smallest detail. All he could think was that he was glad Velvet hadn’t woken up during it. He may have only known her a little while, but that wasn’t the kind of thing anyone easily forgot, and she didn’t deserve to have to sit and listen to that while helpless to do anything about it. John knew he wished that he’d had that chance to miss it.

Time passed again, and he slept at some point through it, waking with terrible nightmares of walking corpses, electrocution ****, and a skinny man with an evil smile.

Eventually, Velvet made a small noise, then yawned slightly as she woke. “Had a nice nap, Sleeping Beauty?” John laughed a little as she jumped, but still caught the smile that blossomed on her face as she realised he was talking about her. It gave him a warm feeling in his chest, and another in his cheeks when he realised that he was the reason for that smile.

“I actually did, yeah. Any idea what time it is? And did anything interesting happen while I was out?” she asked, smile still glowing.

John’s mirth dropped quickly as he saw Eli dropping again and the imaginary scent of burnt flesh filled his nose for a moment. He thought about sharing what had happened, but didn’t see the point. It’d just scare her - God… Gaia, even, only knew how it scared him - and there wasn’t anything he could do to get them out.

So, instead, he pushed it down and turned back to her. “Not much, really. I- I, uh, I got bored and decided to count the number of cracks in that concrete pillar. That’s just about the most interesting thing that’s happened?” Technically that was true. He wouldn’t have called witnessing a **** particularly interesting, more along the lines of horrific.
He had actually done the counting after waking from the nightmares. Turns out there were exactly 68 cracks in the pillar nearest to them. So close, yet so far.

She laughed again, and John’s heart skipped another beat. It would be really weird how easy it was to talk to her, considering how little he’d spoken to anyone other than his mom in the last few years, if not for the fact that he was so glad for that ease.

He continued, “Not certain of the time, though I heard one of them yelling about birds earlier, so probably sometime in the morning.” That got another small giggle out of her, then they were quiet for a while again, the silence only broken by the regular incoherent moaning from the other prisoners, **** up as they were. John didn’t know what else to say, and he assumed she was still waking up.

It wasn’t until one of the other prisoners made a louder groan that they spoke again. There was a thud and some muffled swearing from the other side of one of the entrances, and then some music started playing, just loud enough to be audible through the wall, though not clearly. It was a rock track of some kind. All John could really understand was the bass, the drums, and the guitar which was going crazy and sounded good for it. Velvet, on the other hand, perked up slightly and began to bob her head to the guitar solo with a slight smile, and said, “Well, at least there’s some good music.”

John chuckled. “Good music? So, what, are you one of those metalheads?”

She grinned at him “It’s at least a bit of an upgrade from that freaking pipe that keeps dripping.”

“An upgrade? A real upgrade would have been-” He cut off as one of the doors opened, and Toby slinked in, with another thug who John hadn’t seen before coming in behind him.

The criminal locked eyes with John as he shouted up the staircase, “Don’t forget to bring me back a drink, Bob! You owe me!” then winked at John as he closed the door behind his partner, letting a clang echo through the chamber, a sound reminiscent of a bell tolling, yet with a dark twist.

Toby sauntered over to John leisurely. “Ah, alone at last. How’s your stay so far? I’m told the rooms are very comfortable here. I do have to say though… I prefer the penthouse suites personally.” The man’s friendly attitude was undercut by the smug grin stretching across his face.

John recognised that grin. It was the same self-satisfied smirk he saw on Frank, or any of his jocks, when they were bullying their victims. It was the look of someone who had power over another and wasn’t shy of abusing that power. In the case of Frank, it was usually by rearranging John’s innards with his fists. With Toby… that was a train of thought John didn’t care to follow.

Just as he always did with Frank, he knew that no matter what he said, he was going to get hurt, so he threw out some snark at the taunting thug, “W-Well, it’s been pretty calm so far… t-though there’s this one guy on the staff that won’t stop bothering me. Surprised he hasn’t, er, asked for my number yet with how, you know, obsessed he is. A little bit weir-”

There was a sharp crack as Toby smacked John’s cheek with an open-handed slap, leaving a stinging feeling and a red handprint that quickly faded due to Gamer’s Body. The only part of that which surprised him was that it was a slap and not a full punch. The man then grabbed his chin to guide his face to lock eyes. The thug opened his mouth to speak, then stopped as another voice spoke. “Uhh, s-sir, you’re not meant to touch them, remember?”

Toby rolled his eyes and let go of John’s jaw with a light tug as he stood and spoke, “Jay, dude. Take a fucking chill pill, or look away if you gotta. Anyone asks? He got out of the restraints somehow so it was self-defence, right?” He spread his hands out towards Jay, and John looked over at him. He was, in a word, mousey. A similar size as Toby, but where John’s sadistic playmate was lanky and long-limbed, allowing him to give the impression he was larger than he actually was, Jay almost did the opposite.

He was small, and gave the impression that he wished he could be even smaller. Every motion was constantly trying to be unnoticed. Tiny steps and minute movements, hunched over and with his head lowered. Everything about how he moved and acted said that he didn’t want to be there, or to talk to Toby, or to do just about anything, honestly. John grimaced slightly. Even he thought this man was kind of pathetic, and he wasn’t exactly the kind of guy to stand tall and fight his problems head-on. It was almost like looking in a funhouse mirror.

Though… standing tall and facing the problem was exactly what he had done, wasn’t it? He’d come across Velvet and had gone straight to attacking the kidnappers, almost without thinking. It was that stupidity and recklessness that got him stuck here, literally kidnapped, and sat on the edge of panic for the last however many hours.

He glanced at Velvet, turning her head around to try and listen better, her eyes moving yet unseeing, and he simply couldn’t bring himself to feel he’d done the wrong thing. Sure, it would’ve been a good idea to call the cops or something first, but he still would have gone into the alleyway, and he still would have tried to attack them to slow them down or stop them.

A new message flashed into his vision as he finished that thought.

Achievement Unlocked - A Modern Gentleman
Put yourself in danger’s path to protect a lady, despite the consequences it might have on you, and know you’d do it again. Maybe not the smartest move, but I admire a person who stays true to their moral code in spite of basic survival instinct.

Well, that was nice. At least he got something from all this.

…

Oh fuck! He’d forgotten about his powers again! If there was an achievement for that, there were probably others he’d ignored and had auto-dismissed somehow. Maybe there was a notification log or something? Not just that, he also had the quest reward for looking in the alley waiting. That was something about combat, if he remembered right, and that could be really helpful if he ever got out of here.

The two criminals stopped chattering, or more accurately, it seemed that Toby decided they were done talking, and came closer to John again. He paused to see what was going to happen before deciding when to look for these achievements and rewards, hoping to focus on them once the thug had left.

“Now, where were we…” Toby paused dramatically for a moment, tapping a finger on his chin mockingly, as if deeply in thought. “Of course! You were trying to be brave and clever to impress your girlfriend here. Or maybe to try and scare me?” The man was clearly enjoying his performance, as he scoffed and added a pretentious and sarcastic laugh at the suggestion that he could be frightened. “Well, it doesn’t matter. You’re about as scary as a rabbit in a cage, and your girlie here… well, we’ll get to that later.”

He turned around to Jay. “Give me your knife.” He thrust his hand out at the other man and impatiently gestured when Jay didn’t move to do as instructed. “C’mon. Bob took mine away when I was practising throws and almost landed it in his thick skull. I need it to have some…” he glanced over at John with a wicked grin, “...educational activities.”

John watched as Jay nervously looked back and forth between John and Toby with an expression of such intense discomfort and nervousness that John could almost feel it. He managed to stutter out, “I-I-I don’t know if that’s a-a good idea, Mr Gundress.”

There was a dead moment of silence and stillness, the kind that one could truly hear a pin drop in, then suddenly there was brilliant blue electricity arcing, not just between Toby’s fingertips like it had during the ****, but actually between his hands, and wrapping itself up his arms. His sadistic smile twisted into a violent grimace as he turned to face the other man.

John also noticed that the arcing was much more erratic and violent this time, compared to during the ****, however long ago exactly that was now. Maybe it became less controlled the more emotional he was? That might be a weakness to exploit, or a strength to be aware of; either way, John filed it away in his head the same way he would do with a boss fight, just in case it came in handy.

The sparking magic coiled and snapped itself repeatedly on his arms as he steadily approached the other criminal, hands tightening into fists which shook with anger. He was turned away from John, but Jay’s features, etched with fear, were enough to know that there was a matching expression of rage on Toby’s face as he reached a hand forward and grabbed Jay by the head, fist wrapping in his mop of hair and shocks receding slightly.

Clearly not fully though. If Jay’s pained squeals were any indicator, it was reduced just enough so as not to permanently injure him. “Never. Call. Me. That. You fucking got that in your dumb fuck skull? Never! How many times do I have to fucking tell you idiots that it reminds me of my fucktard dad and then I get- AGH!” With each growled word, he shook the other man, before eventually throwing him to the ground with a shout at the end and turning away to breathe deeply for a minute.

With how much of an overreaction this seemed to be to John, he changed his mental notes a little. The powers seemed to become more uncontrolled with emotion, but this was a show of power and intimidation as much as it was a loss of control. Also, the level of overreaction made it slightly awkward to watch this without being involved, almost like the feeling you get when you’re at someone else’s house and their parents scold them, but infinitely more violent, and with magic and knives, and the creeping fear of **** to distract from that awkwardness. Not that he’d had much experience with being at a friend’s house with or without the fear of ****. Or any experience, actually.

With the new knowledge that Toby planned to **** him, and without the knowledge of how far he’d take that, John took the chance of both criminals being distracted to see if he could find the notification log, or whatever it was. He didn’t know if it would help, but… he had a dark feeling that Toby would kill him after having his fun. And he wouldn’t be questioned much if he faked it as an accident or self defence.

He thought for a moment that he’d run into a problem when he willed his menu into view and then realised his hands were restrained, but quickly found that thinking of opening a certain section hard enough opened it.

After running through the various menus and not finding anything, he thought to himself, ‘C’mon. Would it have been so hard to put a tutorial in? Or even just a bright glowing dot to show I’ve got notifica-’ His complaints came to an abrupt end when his menus glitched for a moment, and then a very obvious red dot appeared next to a new section labelled Notifications.

He opened it, and was greeted by a message overlaid over the actual menu, reading,
“Be nicer, ungrateful brat. Unlike some, I don’t spend my spare time jacking off to porn games with ‘such great mechanical designs’.”

John involuntarily flushed. The dig was obvious, but true, and it was a literal goddess saying it, which really put it into perspective for him. He mentally apologised for bitching, and the message disappeared. Underneath it he found almost exactly what he’d been imagining: a list of various achievement titles, with the quest title he’d completed near the end, and each had the small red dot to show they were unread.

Just as he opened the first unread, Toby had apparently gathered himself enough and turned back to Jay, then held his hand out silently to Jay, who timidly handed over a knife while clearly trying not to cry. Toby snatched it away and twirled it around his hand a few times, then stared at John, regaining his sadistic smile, while John was faced with the task of reading the potentially important messages and rewards at the same time as dealing with his soon-to-be torturer. As Toby came closer again, Jay quietly slipped away - the only real indicator that he’d left was the clunk of the door bar dropping into place on the far side.

“Where were we? Ah yes, I was about to make us twinsies!” Toby moved forward and rolled John’s arm to show the outside, forcing the hand within the machine to painfully scrape against the inside.

Meanwhile, John was reading through the achievement, barely managing to multi-task. Turns out that all the task-juggling he’d needed as team leader in those MMOs wasn’t wasted after all. He quickly skimmed through the first one.

Achievement Unlocked - Lean on me
Help someone stand on their own two feet when they can’t find the strength to do it alone.
The true measure of a person is not their strength to stand alone, but how they help others to stand beside them.
Reward - Gaia’s Support Token

Then Toby placed the knife down, and slowly pushed it in, dragging it through John’s arm, scratching bone on the way down his arm. Any thought of the achievement was gone instantly in the biting pain. For John, his only real experience of pain was Frank’s bullying. That was bad enough, considering how he’d almost had to go to the hospital a few times. He thought he’d been prepared because of that. He was very wrong. He had no way of being prepared for the cold steel’s icy bite as it parted skin and muscle alike.

-7HP

He took a deep breath, **** back the tears and opened his eyes just in time to see his torturer’s expression flicker. He couldn’t tell if it was anger, confusion, or something else that crossed the man’s face, but he was sure it wasn’t going to end well. He opened the next achievement as the man began muttering to himself in disbelief and examining the knife closely.

Achievement Unlocked - Hamster on a Wheel
Be unwillingly used as a mana source to power something. Somehow, an actual hamster would probably be more useful. Also, I doubt you’re getting this in a situation where you'll appreciate the humour, so I’ll be bringing this, and the reward, up again later whenever I remember.

Toby grabbed his arm roughly and examined it as well, then exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be damned, you little fucker!” He turned his head to look at John with a very weird mix of anger and glee on his face. “You’ve got some kinda instant restoration, haven’t you? Wait, let’s test!” He gripped the knife properly and then slammed it into the Gamer’s arm savagely.

“FUCK!” John screamed out a curse and thrashed in his bindings to try and strike the sadist.

Then Toby yanked the knife out-

-16 HP

-and watched the wound. It took about ten or fifteen seconds to see it flash what John could only describe as a magical blue and the wound disappear entirely, taking the pain with it. He breathed a sigh of relief as Toby muttered a curse under his breath as he stood up, thought for a moment and moved away, tapping the flat of the knife against his palm in a violent parody of John’s own focusing tic with a pencil, so John took the opportunity to read the next couple of achievements.

Achievement Unlocked - Making the best of a bad situation.
Description not found: [ADMIN OVERRIDE]
“This isn’t a standard achievement, but I felt like you deserved a mention for it. First time in years you’ve spoken to a girl that doesn’t want to cut your dick off and feed it to you, and it’s when you’re locked in a mana factory with no way out and no clear hope of rescue. Not only did you make a friend, but you got a damned laugh and a giggle out of the cutie. I’m legitimately somewhat impressed, even if she is almost as starved for contact as you are.”
Rewards - +1 CHA, My Respect

John moved that one away and opened the next as Toby began to pace in an arc away from John and began talking to himself, just low enough that John couldn’t overhear from where he was, although even he could pick up on the intensity and aggression coming from the sadistic criminal.

Achievement Unlocked - ****’s a new friend.
Bear witness to someone’s final moments for the first time.
Reward - +2 WIS

That last achievement put a sharp edge to John’s thoughts. He may not have known Eli, but there was no way he could ever forget the feeling of sitting helpless and watching a person lose their life. And to think that it was Toby who had done it? The same man that just stabbed and cut him for ****, who had kidnapped both of them? That… that made him angry. Not just afraid, or panicked, but actually angry. A surprising amount of anger, actually.

Toby strode back over to John. He had his masking smirk on once again, and stood in front of John, putting on the same dramatic attitude he’d displayed earlier. John opened the final notification and read through it, paying just enough attention to the man’s pretension that he’d know if he needed to reply or was in immediate danger - well, more immediate danger than he currently already was, at least.

“It’s probably going to scar, you know? I got a minor heal thing on it, but they’re really shitty. They heal the worst of it, but the rest is left to work naturally.” Toby spoke casually again, as if it were two friends lounging.

Quest Finished! “Curiosity… killed the cat.”
Investigate the unfolding situation in the alley: Complete!
I'll be honest, I did not expect you to charge in, guns blazing. It definitely met the quest requirements, but I figured you might at least try and look for help first.
Reward - XP to Next Level, Class System Unlock

The sadist looked at John’s arm where an ugly red line streaked along the outside, then chuckled bitterly and shook his head while John claimed the reward. Immediately, all other windows closed, and one appeared insistently in front of him as the man continued speaking.

Congratulations! You have completed your first quest, and now you’ll be able to develop your first skillset to help you survive the Abyss. You’ll be offered a selection of objectives, each of which will set you on a certain style of magic use. You may only choose one at this stage. At a later stage, classes will be obtained via alternate methods. Choose wisely.

“But obviously, Wonder Kid here has super bullshit healing skills. Can’t properly **** you, can’t scar you, can’t do anything fun, can I?”

The message then cleared and another appeared, this one with a list of different tasks on it as promised. The tasks seemed to all be things like “Compete in combat of some form” or “Skip a class successfully without being punished.” Each one gave John a general idea of the type of magic he’d gain from it; the fighting one would make him better at combat, the one for skipping a class would give him something leaning towards stealth, or maybe something charisma-related if he has to talk his way out of it. He’d just begun reading the list, skimming over the words to filter through and work out which ones he’d never manage, like “give an inspirational speech;” when Toby’s voice intruded once more.

“So I thought, I can’t **** the kid, I can’t kill him without the boss getting pissed, but you know what I can do? I could always mess with the girlie he was trying to save!”