A mystery in class and an encounter

John’s day was set to continue in its utter strangeness with the next of his classes, a somewhat boring affair which involved a minor mystery with the quite strict and herself somewhat mysterious Miss Wentworth.

The teacher had never been a favourite of John, but today he found she, along with the room itself, held a strange air that he was sure any normal person would find disconcerting. It was not to say, however, that John, no longer being an ordinary young man, did not find it utterly bewildering. Just as it was likely that it would, his body with every fibre of its existence screamed at him for escape from inside that classroom. A place that was utterly devoid of anyone but himself and Miss Wentworth. Who, with ominous fervour and intensity, stared at some blank space behind John. When he entered, she had done nothing, his appearance had provoked no response, a fact which only increased the eeriness that John was experiencing in his quite normal reaction to the strange air.

Fighting his every instinct, John sat down, fear welling within him, and waited for the class to start. Slowly, the students sharing the class with John began pouring into the room. None of them seemed to notice the frightening air in the room as he had. The students entered the class and found their places just as casually as they would in every other class. Somehow, the air in the room was only noticeable to him. It told him that whatever it was seemed to be targeting him. John could guess as to why this was.

’It might be that somebody else with magic has found me.’ John thought, slightly worried about what the implications of such an event would be. He spent the next few minutes pondering those exact implications. At first, he thought that it would have to be someone who was not hostile, since otherwise, he would probably have been dead already as he had no way to defend himself. Then he thought that it might be someone attempting to lure him into a trap as he did not know if whoever had found him knew the extent of his abilities. If it was a trap, John believed it would be unlikely it was anyone in the classroom who had made it. Which gave him just the reason he needed to stay inside it. Worried about either option, however, he understood that he needed a more offensive spell than he currently had. Given that need, he decided to endeavour to obtain one later.

A few minutes after he had completed pondering those questions, the stream of students entering the classroom had stopped. That caused Miss Wentworth to begin the lesson. Trying to stay alert, John began using Psychic Connection, as it seemed to him the best way for him to detect a trap before it was sprung while also not needing to pay attention to the class. At first, he noticed nothing unusual about the class or the people in it, but then a few minutes after he had started, he suddenly dropped out of Psychic Connection. Shortly after, his ability to leave his mind had disappeared, leaving him trapped within it. For a moment, John panicked, as he assumed it was the trap being sprung. Nothing seemed to change, however, as Miss Wentworth still continued the class, which John now realized was about the colonization of America, and no one entered the classroom suddenly. Since John had no interest in the topic and was still unable to use his Psychic Connection he just sat there and waited for the class to end, constantly looking at the door and the other students, worried that they might be springing the trap until eventually, the class ended.

For the whole time John had sat there he considered what he could do now. He had some powers but nothing that he could use to impact his life in a more significant way than he already had, and he wasn’t even sure if someone else with magic was even out there. The blocking of Psychic Connection seemed to indicate that there was, however. Eventually, John came to the conclusion that he will just have to see what happens. Of course, he had a date with Alice tomorrow, and school would probably leave him busy for the day, so tomorrow he would not have much free time, but what would happen afterwards was a mystery to him. He had no real information at the moment, or at least none he could use to further explore his powers or understand what was going on. No ideas on how to increase his powers presented themselves just yet as well, though John had begun to think of something. For a moment John hoped that he might have more time with Alice on his way back home, but he remembered that her chosen field of medicine came with an almost completely different schedule especially in regards to how many classes they have. A few minutes after he had both held hopes and dashed them himself, the class ended. When it did, John got up and made his way out of the school and towards the busses since he lacked any other options but to go home.

On the way there, he found himself incredibly bored and faced with many people he had not seen before that day, he decided to restart his quest to Observe as many of them as he could. Most of the people he used Observe on were completely boring, just as they were earlier that day. When he was almost out of the school he noticed someone who seemed like a completely average person. She was a girl with straight brown hair and seemingly nothing to set her apart from the crowd when viewed from behind; the name above her head, however, told a very different tale.

“Jane ‘Rave’ Holmey” It pronounced loudly, daring John with its irregularity. There was no way a nickname like that would be given to someone that was as normal as she seemed, so John used Observe on her.

’Well that answers it,’ John thought, immediately understanding that her belonging to a guild indicated something more to her than just a normal person since if guilds were just regular organizations, he would have seen someone in a guild when he used Observe on them during the day. There were two other things that indicated to John she might also have magic. First, her level was the highest he had seen; she was significantly higher than even his mother who was the person with the highest level he had met and was almost 30 years older than her. The second was that one of her parents was apparently part of the “Abyss Auction” whatever that was as John had never heard of it and given all the previous clues he assumed it must have been of at least a somewhat magical origin. A second later he knew there was more going on here than he understood, and his mind raced. For a moment he considered the possibility that it was her who had found him but dismissed it just the same, as she would have probably not let him gain this much information if she knew about him. Scared out of his mind, John retreated away from the girl he now knew as Rave and ran out of the school and towards the busses. On his way there, however, he saw another surprise.

The surprise was a redheaded girl he recognized, one by the name of Moira Brighton. Curiously, under her name was a strange title: <Warden of the Golden Rose>. When John saw this he almost fell backwards, so surprised by such a unique and strange title as to lose all control of his body while running forwards. He rushed to use Observe on Moira just as he did Rave only a moment earlier.

There were so many questions that John could ask just from that single sheet but one thing he knew, there were definitely other people with magic, after all, Moira seemed to fit the common archetype for a paladin.

’The Order of the Golden Rose doesn’t sound too bad, maybe I should ask her for some help,’ John at first thought. He almost went to tap Moira on the back to get her attention when he reconsidered. ’No. I can’t do that. I have no idea who Gaia is, and I can’t prove to her that I’m not hostile, if she decides to attack me for whatever reason, or I am misunderstanding them, or even if I'm being fed false information by somebody with magic that can counteract my Observe, I could be killed.’ that was his conclusion. Next, he saw something strange, an instant later he would have sworn he had seen something, but it was so fast he did not know what he saw. Purple flashed before his eyes, before quickly disappearing again. For a single second John thought the purple was someone’s hair, but it was too quick to tell. Panicked, John hurried towards the bus once more, and before even his mind could argue, he quickly entered the bus going to his home and sat down.

‘I need some way to defend myself before I can try to find out anything else’ he concluded, ’Especially with something so fast I couldn’t see it running around,’ he completed his thought. John now had two good candidates for where he could get some more information once he had a way to defend himself, however, which could be immensely useful. 'After I get some ability to protect myself, I will approach one of them,' John thought to himself, strangely relaxed that he had gained a way to find out more about his situation even with the possible threat to his life.