At home is where your heart is

8 years ago, at the Mackenzie residence

“But Mom, I want to tell him. It’s not fair, why can’t I tell him?” a young girl complained to her mother.

“Because, Lia, if we tell him, we could put him in danger. We would be exposing him to the Abyss and that would make him a target to our enemies. They would target him just to hurt us,” Jacqueline Mackenzie explained to her daughter for what must have been the third time that month.

“Can’t we help him to become like us?” Amelia asked trying to grasp any sort of idea she could have that would enable her to share her secret life with her friend John.

“No, honey, it doesn’t work like that. The only safe possibility for us to tell him about it would be if he developed powers in some way, like a god blessing him with one. But, as I have told you many times, there’s no sign of him ever developing any sort of power,” her mother calmly told her.

“But Mom, I don’t want to keep secrets from him,” she said almost crying, and then she said what she dreaded the most about the whole thing, “I don’t want to leave him when the time comes for me to fight for the clan.”

“Amelia Mackenzie, you listen to me, you will have to fight! It’s your duty as protector of the Great Highlands Barrier. More and more rifts are opening up, it is our duty to fight whatever comes out of them and to close them. Our clan is strong, but we can’t spare anyone. Your father is there right now protecting our land... What do you think would happen to our morale if you, our leader’s daughter, decided not to fight for the clan?” Jaqueline lost a bit of her patience with her daughter. But deep down she felt some sympathy for her; John has been a very close friend to both her children. His presence in her house was always welcomed.

“Sniff... Alright, Mom, I... I just don’t want to lose him.” Once she had said that, Amelia started to cry for both not getting what she wanted and for being scolded by her mother.

“I know, honey,” Jaqueline said, regaining her patience; she knew that her daughter was too young to understand about her responsibility to the clan. She knelt down to hug Amelia, then, to try to comfort her, she said. “I’ll tell you what, do you want me to teach you a spell so that with it you can always monitor him and keep track of where he goes? So you can at least feel you’re close to him and know that he is alright, ok?”

“Yes, Mom, I would like that.” Amelia wiped away her tears and smiled. “Thanks, Mom.”

“No problem. Who knows, maybe someday he will develop powers and you can tell him everything.” Amelia smiled at that. At that moment, she grasped for hope with all her might. She swore to herself not to leave John until she absolutely had to. “Now, for this spell to work, we will need a ring.”

“Oh, I’ve got the perfect silver one.”

Back to the present at Amelia’s house

Amelia sat on her desk and inspected her glasses for the third time since she had seen John that day. She was still stunned at the information she had gotten from them about John. She did a thorough check-up to determine if they were working properly. She wanted to be sure. And they were in fact working perfectly.

It all now made sense to her. She had missed school this morning because very early on the alarm bells had awakened her. The reason for her rude awakening had been made evident as soon as she had put on her glasses. They had warned her that there was a strange source of energy nearby John. Unfortunately, the monitoring spell on the silver ring she had given him could not point out exactly where it was coming from. Damn it, she had frustratedly thought, the bloody thing is outdated. I have to find out if someone is going to attack him. She had feared it might be one of her clan’s enemies.

When she had finally arrived at John’s house, he had already left for school. The source of the energy had also been gone. She had done a very thorough check around his house and neighborhood to make sure there was no threat around. She hadn’t even cared about missing classes, she had wanted to make sure he was safe. Deciding to check on her glasses again, she had been alarmed to see that energy was still nearby John. She had cursed herself for not checking it earlier. Is someone following him? She had quickly made her way to school.

By the time she had arrived, it had already been lunch time; she had known where John would have been, so she had headed directly to the cafeteria. When she spotted him, she had just stood there and stared directly at him. To say she had been stunned would have been too vague, the readings she was getting had been too much for her to process and the energy source had been in fact coming from John. She then had looked into his eyes and noticed that he had seen her staring at him.

As soon as she had realized this, she had quickly turned and walked away. She had taken off her glasses and tried to make sense of all this. John has powers? Not only that, he was consciously using them? Doing what, I don’t know, but nothing strange was happening around him. Well, with the obvious exception. Another warning had flashed, and she had quickly put them back on. Did he just cast a spell on me? What was he trying to achieve?

And then, during the rest of the school day, things had kept happening around him, first it had been Moira, then during his PE class and finally with his confrontation against the jocks. The last one, she had to intervene with her drones and actually heal him. That reminded her, she had a bone to pick with Moira.

She now left her desk to lie on her bed. So, John has powers now, but how? I wonder what powers he got. Then it hit her, it was the answer that she had been looking for for years. All those years of frustration, all those years of sadness and loneliness, she had now seen the solution for them. “HE HAS POWERS!” she screamed. She was now the happiest she had felt for very, very long time. Then it dawned on her. “Oh fuck, I better call Peter.”

At John’s house

When John arrived his mom was not yet home. It was a good thing too; he was in no state for her to see him. He already had enough problems, having his mother worry about him would just make it worse.

He was still too shaken up from the experience of what had happened during and after PE. The perils of those events were quite real. Having a way to measure his health was a good thing, but it made him realize just how weak he was. Moira easily took a third of his health and the jocks could have just as easily finished the job of draining all his HP.

If it hadn’t been for that weird drone that protected... no, not just protected, it had saved him from them. Whoever had been controlling it obviously had saved him, and also, he didn’t know how, the drone had healed him to full HP. Was this mysterious controller the one Moira had mentioned? Who was it that had interest in keeping him alive? Why?

None of these questions he could answer right now. That person might not always be there to save him. I have to get stronger, again he thought, a jock without any kind of power could easily beat me. Training is my only option right now. If I die, there’s no one that can protect Amelia. The Frank and Vanessa threat are becoming too real. Peter is not here to help me, I have to do this alone.

He thought about Amelia and the assignment June has asked him to do. Had he really developed feelings for Amelia? How could I? We haven’t talked for years! He took his ring from inside his shirt and thought more about it, and remembered how much he missed being with her. She was the best thing in my life. He smiled. In every single moment of real happiness that happened in my childhood, she was there. It now dawned on him that her becoming his inspiration in his stories was only natural. With all those feelings from his childhood, it was inevitable but not evident enough for him to realize that, by doing so, his feelings for her had developed. And now, thanks to June, he knew his real feelings for her.

What now? Now I train! I don’t know where yet, but these barriers will certainly help. Where do I set one up? What will I find inside? He looked around as if trying to find an answer from somewhere inside his room. Weirdly enough, his eyes stopped searching the moment he spotted a book, a book that had been given to him on his eighth birthday by the very girl he just thought about.

The name of the book was Ainmhithe agus Nádúr. He remembered that, when he had opened the gift wrap it had come in, he had seen the title and looked weirdly at her. She had translated it for him: Animals and Nature. It was written in Scottish Gaelic, she had explained. He had thought it was a nice gift because of the pictures of animals in it. He had hugged and thanked her for it.

John remembered that he still mostly used it to look at the pictures, especially nature scenarios for inspiration for his writing. If only I could understand it. Maybe it would give me an idea of where to train. I could maybe even hunt an animal for training.

He took the book off the shelf and was instantly surprised by the pop-up he saw.

Learn from Animals and Nature?
YES | NO

What the? How is that possible? Come on, think, John! You are the Gamer, this is part of my gamer mechanic. This is so cool! It translated the title, does that mean it will translate the whole book? John clicked yes without thinking more about it; he was too eager to find out what he would learn from it.

After opening the book to see if his skill translated the pages, John was mortified when he saw that every single page was blank. His gamer mechanic had just erased every page of a book he had treasured for most of his life. John almost kicked himself for his stupid mistake. Damn it, John, how stupid can you be... of course the book would have been consumed like this when you clicked yes.

New skill - Knowledge of the Beast Lvl 1, passive.
Increases your ability to track and hunt Beasts.
Choice of Beasts inside of Instant Dungeon is now available. With higher levels, more types of Beasts will become available.

Knowledge of the Hunter 1/5

Still saddened by the state of his book, John read the details of his new skill. It was actually just what he needed, but the emotional price was quite high. He put the book back on the shelf. The knowledge was now in his head, he just needed to figure out where to go. Remembering his knowledge of the geographical area of Springfield, John considered his options. Well, Springfield is mostly surrounded by forest, so going there seems like the most obvious choice.

John tried to find out what Knowledge of the Hunter would entail, but that information was blocked from him. I guess I have to discover all the other knowledge skills to gain it.

Ok, I know where I am going, now I need to gear up. Well, school clothes are out, my mom would kill me if I ruin them, so I’ll use some of my old clothes. John picked two set of clothes out of the closet and put them on his bed. He dressed himself in one of them and stored the other set in his inventory. I wonder… John brought up his inventory system and saw that it showed both what he had stored and what he had equipped. He clicked on the stored pants and dragged them towards his equipped pants section, and as soon as he dropped them, they exchanged places with the ones he had on and automatically stored the previously worn pants. Now that’s cool! He proceeded to do a small celebratory dance routine.

What about something to give me a boost? The sports energy drink was quite useful in that department, but its effects had long since gone. Unfortunately, he didn’t find anything that could do the job, so he just got a bottle of water from the fridge and put it in his inventory.

I guess I have to find a weapon. I hope I can find anything of the sort in the garage. He walked to the garage.