A rival and a friend

After having spent the last few days, it seemed, struggling to gain some understanding of his situation and eventually revealing he was simply being tested, John found the comfy and homely environment he was now in strange. Truly, it was a fantastically cozy little place he had appeared in. A small, at least in comparison to his home, wooden cabin. It was composed of multiple rooms that were separated from one another by fairly simple sliding doors that all coalesced into the main room, as he discovered while looking around the modest home. The walls and floor were made out of large oak logs that were almost entirely unrefined, still being rough in shape and appearance. On top of the logs rested many different decorations, several hunting trophies, a large array of maps and a few bookshelves.

The first of the rooms John found was a small kitchen that was far too technologically advanced to have been built at the same time as the rest of the cabin. It had all the modern essentials of a kitchen. The various cupboards inside it even containing fresh produce and other foodstuffs. The next room was a bedroom that was larger than he expected a building of this size to have, containing a fairly fancy queen sized bed that was obviously also not of the same time period as the rest of the house. Instead of being modern, however, the engravings that could be found at the head of it told the young man that like the place he was in earlier, it was Victorian in era. Strangely, it showed signs of use, as the bed sheets were disorganized and unkempt. After that, he found a small study that was quite obviously used for drawing maps. The entire rooms smelt of old paper and ink, and there were various maps hanging in it. The main draws of John’s attention, however, were the various bookshelves which contained books on topics from exploration to terrain features, and the large, old wooden desk and chair that were placed there. After having looked through those, he decided to return to look at the various maps and books later and continued his tour through the cabin. The last room he found was a bathroom containing both a bath and toilet, both of which were of modern design. In addition, it contained a small area for various toiletries and makeup. Returning to the main room, a small living room with some couches, John’s exploration of the cabin had been completed.

’What do I do now? Nobody told me what my goal is. I guess I might be able to find it in this house somewhere, but I should look outside first, view my situation as a whole,’ he thought, resolving to explore outside. Walking towards the heavy oak door that he was sure led there, he heard a light sound come from beyond it. A moment later the sound of the door dragging across the wooden floor was heard, and a ray of natural light began entering the room. Beyond it appeared yet another young woman. A woman which looked strikingly different to the last one he had met.

Where Ingrid radiated authority, she radiated only a common sort of charm. Her hair and eyes were both of common colors, black and brown respectively. And she was wearing quite simple clothing that seemed far more fit for practical use than anything else. Her arms were bandaged in the way a fighter’s would be in so many mangas John had read. Just like him, she was confused as he first appeared. Her first reaction was to assume a martial arts stance of some form, and soon John was pushed on top of one of the couches close to them.

Damage taken: 10 HP lost

“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing here?” The woman, who was now sitting on top of John, using her body weight to lock his movement while grabbing his shirt at the collar and bringing his face up to her, asked.

“WHY MUST EVERYONE FUCKING ASK ME THAT!” he shouted, his annoyance at the continual questioning by all parties having reached critical mass.

“I don’t know. Do you spend much time breaking into people’s houses?” she responded, shrugging her shoulders while still pinning John down. Her grab’s tightness decreased severely, however.

“You know, I wasn’t seriously asking you that. I’m just really sick and tired of every single person I meet thinking that is a legitimate way to start a conversation. Is the Abyssal concept of manners to just stick a weapon in someone’s face and ask them who they are?” he asked, finding the already more relaxed tone of the woman a nice change of pace. Seemingly in response, she gave him a once over and began letting go of his collar.

“Pretty much, yeah,” she said nonchalantly, chuckling afterwards. “I guess you’re a late bloomer then?”

“That’s what they say. Not that I know what the hell that means.”

“Ah, you must be from the Council then, cause my superiors haven’t told me anything.”

“I guess? Not sure what that means exactly.”

“I’m here to help you out then. Nice to meet you, I’m Orianna Harknis, and I’m as close as this place has to a permanent resident,” she introduced herself cheerfully, letting John go and stretching her hand out. He quickly took her hand and shook it. He could feel a strange warmth in it that passed through the bandages.

“I'm John. And ok… So what is this place? And what do you mean by permanent resident?”

“Well, this place is a sort of testing ground for the two main factions in the Gateway. The one you know, the Council, and the one I’m from, the Federation. I’ve been failing this test for a long time now, so I know my way around. That’s why I’m a permanent resident,” she said, a smile not leaving her face the entire time. “It’s always fun when new people are around, though most of the time they just end up leaving here and never coming back,” she continued, a light frown showing.

“Wait, how long have you been around here?”

“Umm... Three years, I think,” she said, taking a moment to consider the question before doing so.

“That’s a really long time, what even is this test that you’ve been stuck here?” he asked, bewildered by the news that that could be his future.

“I don’t know. That’s the trick, you can only finish it when you know what it is. Obviously, it has to have something to do with exploration, but no one knows until you finish the test. And no one alive has done that.”

“And these people that disappear? Are there monsters outside or something?”

“A few, mostly beasts and the like. I don’t think people die to them, mostly. People die because they don’t know how to survive in the wilderness for long periods of time. I’ve found more than a few bodies when looking around the outside. Most of them more skeletons than corpses,” her frown deepened. “but it doesn’t matter, you’re here, so we’re going to help each other get through this test, right?”

“Right,” John responded, a mix of pity and fear affecting his decision.

“I should show you what I’ve explored then,” she began, walking towards the study. He followed quickly behind. When they entered it Orianna began approaching one of the larger maps. The map showed the entire area, with the middle of it very obviously containing a small drawing of the cabin. It was mostly forests and plains, though there were some mountains to the north. There were also several blotches of grey scattered around.

“These are my current ones. All the gray bits are places I haven’t explored yet, I’ve been trying to look through them one by one. There is this one place though,” she pointed to a marking on one of the gray areas on the map. “I think there’s something there. Anytime I go near that area, I get this strangely uncomfortable feeling and my power gets stripped away. I bet with your help I can find what’s there, maybe we can finish this test together then,” she looked to John questioningly, he only nodded, his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking about something she said earlier.

“Hey, random question, but what exactly is the Federation?” he asked, curious as to why there were two factions in the Gateway.

“Well, when the Gateway was discovered the Council were being a bunch of pricks and didn’t let most of the common people join them to explore planes, so we made our own group. That’s the Federation. They’ve been rival organizations ever since.”

“Why have you been so nice to me then?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I want to get out of here, I don’t care who you are. Hell, I don’t really care about this whole Federation Council business in the first place.”

“I suppose that makes some sense.”

“Anyways, anything you want to ask before we head out there? I need to show you some things, but that can wait.”

“There are a few things I’d like to ask, but I think I need to eat something first.” His stomach grumbled in agreement.

’I should be much worse off, guess I have Gamer’s Body to thank for that,’ thought John, happy he now knew his limits more concretely.

“Yeah, sure. Let me just cook something up. I think I owe it to you after that incident earlier. You can never be too safe in the Abyss though, you should remember that.” Orianna agreed, proceeding to the kitchen and working on a few corpses that looked strangely like bats she had gotten from what seemed like thin air.

’Well, that’s my first question right there,’ John thought and then asked.

“Where did you get those from?”

“Oh, right, guess you aren’t that familiar with this kind of stuff yet. It’s a sort of pocket dimension, a lot of people in the Gateway have these. It’s incredibly useful for storing things without needing to carry them, so it’s great for exploring, though it is fairly mana intensive. If you want, there’s a spell book for it on one of the shelves in the living room,” she happily explained.

“I don’t think I need it, I have a similar ability from my powers, but thanks regardless,” John said, curious of the implications such a thing would have.

“What even are your powers?”

“I’m not sure how best I can explain this. But basically, I have the powers of a video game character. I can level up, I have stats, and I get skills and other abilities. Stuff like that, if it makes any sense. I’m not really sure how popular video games are in the Abyss,” he answered, scratching the back of his head in slight embarrassment. It was true that he was indeed like a game character, and he was called the Gamer, but John did not know much else about how his powers worked.

“So you’re like an RPG character?”

“Basically, yeah. I was kind of expecting you to be confused about that though.”

“That’s news to me. We have video games too. I assume they’re more advanced, they’re usually magic based, just like most of our stuff-”

“You have magic based video games?” The Gamer’s interest was piqued by the idea of magical video games.

“Yeah, we do, they’re pretty great. If you want, when we get out of here, I’ll show you some of them. But you wanted to ask me some questions as well?”

“Yeah… I wanted to know what your powers were, and if you could give me a brief rundown of the basics of the Gateway and the like, nobody really bothered to tell me anything.”

“Sure. My powers are life magic based, if you know what that means?”

“Not really?” John asked, confused.

“There are a bunch of categories of magic, I don’t remember all of them most of the time, but life magic has to do with living things. You know, plants, animals and the like. Humans too, which is how my powers work. I am a Biomancer, I think is the proper term. Basically, I infuse life **** into my body to make it stronger,” she quickly explained. Having almost completed her task of butchering the bat like creatures, one of her hands began to glow with a gold tinted green light that seemed to massively increase her speed in handling the corpses. “like that.”

“Huh, that’s a pretty awesome set of powers. Does everyone in the Abyss have unique magic like that?”

“Most do, yeah. If I remember my last anatomy lessons right, everyone is born with an affinity for one type of magic, and you develop your own style of it based on your personality and psyche. I would be interested to hear which you are, if you know, at least?” she asked as she completed working on the creature’s meat and proceeded to begin cooking it to make some sort of stew along with various other leaves and vegetables.

“Psychic, I think.”

“That’s a rare one, makes sense the Council was interested in you. Probably means you have a lot of potential. Guess I should call you boss or something,” she spoke cheerfully, laughing. John’s only response was to join her. “anyways, about the Council and the like. I can’t really tell you much, I don’t follow the politics and I have been stuck here for three years. But I’ll tell you what I do know. The leader of the Council, I’m sure you’ve met her, goes by the name of Ingrid Bluespark. Bluespark’s the name of her house, it’s the one that’s been leading them for a couple hundred years. Got something to do with Psychic powers, I think, if I remember my teachers right. There are a few other houses, each one of them usually focuses on a specific type of magic or something of the sort. Some of them even originate from noble houses from the real world. That’s about all I remember though, sorry.

“I can tell you a bit more about the Federation, but it’s also a lot more chaotic. There are a few major wings that centralized different parts of it, like exploring, military forces and the like, but nothing much else. And I doubt the leaders have stayed the same since I’ve been gone. My superiors send me a message when someone is coming, but they don’t bother to fill me in on much else. That’s enough of me blabbering about that though. I think this stew is done.”

“You sure about that? It’s only been a few minutes.”

“That’s one thing you still need to learn, John,” she said, seemingly naturally calling him by his name. “magic improves basically everything,” Orianna explained, pointing to the vapors John now noticed were coming from the pot in which the stew was being cooked.

A few minutes later, they sat down to eat at a small oak table that was also in the kitchen. The stew was surprisingly good, being made out of various plants and meats John could not and did not want to recognize. A popup yet again informed him of his regen boosts for eating after a few minutes, and he remembered to finally do something he probably should have done almost immediately, use Observe on Orianna. First though, he wanted to prevent a repeat of what happened with Ingrid, so he asked her explicitly.

“So, I have this fairly simple scrying spell that’s one of the things I got from my powers, it’s called Observe, mind if I use it on you? It seems it’s bad manners to do that kind of thing without warning, which is why I wanted to ask,” John requested as politely as he could, stressed that maybe that wasn’t the best idea.

“Go ahead, I don’t really care. It’s not like I have anything to hide,” Orianna responded nonchalantly.