Newman Problems

Achievement Unlocked! 'A stroke of luck'
You got lucky and some random mundane person actually managed to keep you from dying. At the rate you're going, you're going to need this for all of your future medical bills.
+$1000
+1 Doctor's office lollipop

John immediately threw away the piece of candy. He couldn't have cared less about a owning or eating a lollipop at this time. He still felt sick when he finally got up to leave the classroom, and for a moment, he was tempted to just run off to the nurse's office again in an attempt to just try and restore his own health. The book had drained him of nearly every point of health he had! By the time he had gotten up, John only had thirteen health points left!

Unfortunately, he was **** to change his mind from going to the nurse's office.

John was partway through walking on to his next class and reading through the Soul Torn status effect when he heard them. The most recent status effect was by far one of the strangest ones he had ever seen. Even while listening to the sound of marching footsteps and people talking in low, quiet voices, John couldn't help but turn his head to look at the pop-up describing his newest problem.

Status Effect: Soul Torn
Soul Torn: A common symptom found in people who have recently had someone attempt to alter, wound, or steal their soul partially in some way. Usually, people with this effect have fallen victim to certain types of Qabalist magic but somehow still managed to survive. Having one's soul torn usually leads to a myriad of other symptoms or problems like weakness, insanity, a loss in one or more of a person's five senses, loss of emotion, loss of life, loss of...
This effect has no timer and cannot be ended by natural means.

The long list of problems that the status effect could lead to really did just go on and on. There was no end to the list of problems that could have transpired from having that effect, and he really didn't want to keep reading them off. He already didn't feel well and that wasn't making it any better.

"You said he's down this hallway?" A single, lone voice rang out from around a nearby corner as John at last came to a full stop.

"I don't know. It feels like he might have broken out of the spell." It was Cassandra who spoke up this time. Her voice was clear and easily recognizable as the group got closer. "Have your weapons at the ready."

Now was the time to panic. He already had almost no health left!

"Impossible!" the first voice snapped. It was another woman. It wasn't hard for John to make that much out, despite how deep and firm her tone was. In a flash, John ducked into a nearby empty locker and quietly closed it shut behind him. It was a tight fit for John to get in there, even with the door open, but once it was closed, John realized he wasn't going to be able to move if he wanted to stay hidden. He had to keep utterly still and silent. "Keep that barrier at the ready!" the first voice barked again. "I don't want anybody seeing or hearing us if we run into the wrong person."

It took a few long, drawn out seconds for the group of voices to appear, and even then, John only got a clouded look at the lot of them through the slits in the locker he was hiding in. Cassandra was the first one he looked for, she was the one he wanted to confirm the identity of. When he found her she was standing at the back of a rather large group of armed individuals. She wasn't dressed in her school uniform or even in typical everyday clothes. Specifically, she had on parts of the rest of the outfit that he had seen on her the previous night. He recognized the skintight, blue jeans and thigh-hugging, almost groin high, leather boots she had on. It was hard not to recognize her clothing. Even from a distance, or locked in a confined space like he was, John couldn't help but leer at the way the leather straps on her boots dug into the thickness of her full, womanly thighs. Her ass-hugging jeans were still no better than short shorts because of how much was covered up by her boots. Boots that were held up by the locks of a strange, black, leather belt that glistened and shimmered unnaturally in the light. The front of her belt, where it tightly clicked shut around her waist, did not have any kind of traditional buckle or clip to hold it together, at least not one that he would have expected, but instead it was held together by two interlocking pieces from a set of handcuffs.

She didn't have the same teasing, translucent, white shirt on that John had seen her in last. Cassandra came ready for something else entirely this time. Drawn tightly across her form and buttoned evenly all the way up to the base of her neck was a long blue and white trench coat made specially to match the tight pair of white gloves she had on her hands. Her coat was clean and tidy, and when she walked, it reminded him of something that a renaissance soldier might have worn to display their status. On one hip hung two sharp, daunting, silvery blades of varying lengths. One was a familiar item, a katana that she had pulled on him once before and nearly cut him down with outside of his work. The other was like a much shorter version or a model of the first, almost a mirror image really if it wasn't for its smaller size.

"If he still has the book, then he should be in this classroom on the right." When she walked past, John realized that her hair was white again, still flowing and whipping wildly behind her like it was caught in some magical breeze. One of her eyes burned with a familiar, baleful, red light as she moved and cast the hallway around her into the same horrible glow. She stopped after a couple seconds, directly across the hallway from where John was hiding as another squad member pushed to the front of the group and stepped through the doorway to the classroom he had just come from while the owner of the first voice came into his line of sight.

The second person was taller than Cassandra, and was nowhere near as filled out or well endowed as her companion. Right off the bat, John could make out little bits of uneven blonde hair spilling down from the top of her scalp. The shaved sides of her head were left bare and smooth and did absolutely nothing to hide the tattoos she had gotten instead of letting all of her hair grow out. She was light skinned, with bright, amber eyes and the lightest hints of a tan hidden beneath her heavy, fur-lined clothing. She wore nothing to cover her arms or hands as she took her place in the center of the squad of heavily armed... soldiers, there was no better word for them, and after a couple seconds she drew a strange, thick, squarish pistol from where the holster was held fast to her cargo pants, strapped tightly around one of her firm, muscular thighs. In her other hand, the one that John couldn't believe he was actually seeing, the other woman held a large, brutal hammer up so it rested over one of her shoulders with a small engine built into the back of the weapon. Her melee or main arm, as astonishing as it was to see it, was made of nothing but metal and wires as John stared at the group of them. Her mechanical limb was completely bionic, and gripped her weapon almost threateningly tight. If he actually tried to listen, John could have heard the slight grinding of metal crushing against metal as she adjusted her grip around the weapon.

They just wanted the book! That was it. He could do that. It wasn't like he needed it or anything, it was just something that he had stolen in the first place. It certainly wasn't something that he was going to let himself be killed for!

John paused for a second between opening his inventory screen and looking out of the locker as one of the soldiers walked right by him. It was like they were wearing black ops gear out of a science fiction novel! Everything they had on them had some kind of strange, reinforced, metal plating to it and was carved and etched with rune after rune. It left them covered in dark, stealthy, and seemingly protective armor. Each person was armed to the teeth, equipped with various grenades, handguns, and even a rifle that they braced against their shoulders as they walked around! The only person to not actually have a gun was Cassandra herself. The multiple lenses that slotted within the eye slits of each soldiers helmet shined with a dim, calculating light, much like the glow of a darkened computer or cellphone screen.

More than that... John realized after a couple of seconds that they all had the same general curvature and body form. For some reason, all of the people that were after him were all women.

A dream under any other circumstance.

The Arcana Iglaciem dropped out of his inventory after a couple seconds. It didn't appear in his hands, for there was no room in the locker for that. It appeared between his legs, floating in the air for a second before it fell to the ground with a loud, heavy flop. A soft, simple gasp escaped John as he looked up from his inventory screen just in time to see the blonde girl's hammer crush his hiding place flat against the wall behind it. The sound of the metal locker being flattened creaked and boomed down through the hallway and throughout the rest of school as she slowly drew her hammer back and turned to Cassandra.

"Fix it and get us out of here, now." the seemingly blonde leader barked out one more order before Cassandra suddenly stopped them. She had heard it too, and her sword was just as quickly out of its sheath and at the ready when she saw it. They had a couple seconds at least to stop and stare because right in front of them, down at the bottom of the ruined, broken, giant metal cubby, was the one artifact they had been looking for, covered in a layer of dried blood and soot.

Cassandra's book was finally back and safe in her arms again.