Going Shopping

“You mean? Right. Sure. Yes! Let’s go,” John said, a little flustered by her forwardness. Though I guess after yesterday I should expect it. Good thing I got that Lady-Killer perk this morning, but maybe I should’ve gone with one of my new libido perks. Well, too late now, John thought as Jenny led him by the hand through the glossy tiled halls. They were mostly abandoned, as eighth period was in session, with the exception of a few students and faculty members roaming the building for various reasons.

She opened up one of the side exits and pulled through before saying, “This is near one of the barriers I was telling you about yesterday. This one leads from the school to the center of town. Using this one and the other one I showed you, you could probably get to your house in five minutes walking.” Jenny explained as she pulled him into a barrier.

“Wait a second, how do you know where I live?” John asked, as she had gone into some barrier he couldn’t sense last night, and he had gone home.

“I know things,” she said mysteriously, before laughing and continuing, “I knew you were getting all buddy-buddy with the new girl too, didn’t know she was part of the Abyss though.”

John froze up, since he hadn’t considered that. Since she was so open about it with me, she’s probably not hiding it… but I should probably think more about stuff like that. Shouldn’t Wisdom help me with that?

“Get a move on slowpoke,” Jenny said, as John had slowed down while lost in thought. John caught up with her, and out of curiosity, he used Spy on the barrier, as he wondered if it had question marks for its level like the other one.

Unnamed Barrier
Level: ???
Population: 2

“What’s your ability say about the barrier?” Jenny asked as she strummed her bass, having taken it back out of the black leather case.

“Well, it doesn’t have a level, like the other one. Wait, how did you know I used a skill?” John asked, shooing away the barrier’s screen.

“Your magic shot up for a second. I’m not really great at sensing that stuff, but you’re pretty unrefined. Since you’re magic is so weak, little changes like that are way more noticable. When you get stronger, people won’t be able to tell as much,” Jenny explained, deliberately moving her hips to tease him as they walked. “Speaking of getting stronger, you look faster than when I first saw you. And you move with more confidence. How much stronger did you get training with the new girl?”

“Well, I’m level seven now, which puts me at nine levels below you,” John said, Spying her again, to compare to his level.

Jenny Hudson
Not So Lonely Musician, Level 17
Expert bassist. Only known American, human user of bass magic. You seem like a genuinely nice person, and in the Abyss, that’s rare. You also kind of saved her so she still likes you for that. Make her like you for another reason before that wears off!
RS:+48

“Actually, you’re ten levels above me,” John said, a little dejected, but Jenny pumped her fist into the air in victory.

“Yes! That training paid off. Going to have to do better than that to catch up with me,” Jenny said with a suggestive lull to her voice and took off through the barrier, though she was noticeably slower than in the goblin village barrier.

“Hey! I don’t know where this thing lets out!” John said as he sprinted after her. He was still much slower than her, and she had more endurance than him to boot. Despite that, he had a plan to beat her to the end.

Before the gap between them widened too much, John, confident he could clear it if he could stop her in her tracks, cast Magic Rope. Throwing it at her, the rope coiled around her ankle and tightened, tripping her.

“You better watch out! The barrier ends in- crap!” Jenny exclaimed as she tumbled over the rope, and John was just close enough to catch her in his arms. He knelt with her and smiled down at her with a smug grin.

“That’s twice that I’ve saved you now,” he said, and her shocked face quickly faded into a blush. She reached in to kiss him but pulled back at the last second and pushed him away, leaping up into a sprint.

“Doesn’t count if you cause it! That was a cheap trick!” she yelled back at him, running backwards. John was barely fast enough to keep up with her as she did so, and they exited the barrier together, both of them tripping over discarded chinese food boxes in the alley that the barrier let out.

Reentering! (10s)

He landed on top of her, and with her usual sensual grin, she brought her hands up to his collar and pulled him in for a rough kiss, making up for what he missed out on in the barrier. “I thought you could wait ‘til we got to your house,” she teased as he got up and reached down with a hand to help her up.

“You seemed to be pretty into it, considering we were lying in a dirty alley,” he responded as she dusted herself off. He felt good. Things had gotten so easy between them already. Is this really all a few points of Charisma do? That’s insane! His thoughts were interrupted as she opened up her instrument’s case, and John noticed it seemed to be empty. He decided to ask about it, “What’s up with your case?”

“Oh! It has two forms. Real bag form, where it just holds my bass and some other stuff like spare strings,” Jenny explained, sealing the case by zipping it up. She pulled on the zipper, which John noticed looked pretty fancy, with some ornate carvings on it, and it came off. It was replaced on the opposite side of the bag by a much less fancy, silvery zipper. When she unzipped the case using it, her bass appeared. “I don’t really know how deep the bag goes. Or what it can store. Just that it’s weightless in either mode. And the stuff inside doesn’t seem to get damaged. I haven’t tested it though,” Jenny finished with a frown, considered shaking the bag to test if it would damage her bass, but thought better of it.

“Anyways, I usually keep it in real bag mode, because, if normal people see it empty but then see me with my bass like ten minutes later, that raises some questions, but I was just getting a piece of gum out of it in magic-y bag mode,” she explained, handing him a piece too, which he popped into his mouth before questioning her.

“So how much stuff do you have in there? Can you go in there?” John asked, noticing she had led him to a music shop. The same one she had been at when they were pulled into the trap barrier yesterday. She led him inside and toward the back before replying.

“Other people have gone in, but not me. I’ve gone in somebody else’s though! I think the bag only works for me, it’s bound to me or something. My dad paid a small fortune for it. You can try it out in a while, buuuut first let’s go into the barrier here; my family owns this music shop, and when I left yesterday, I forgot my lucky pick,” she explained, disappearing into a barrier which John soon felt. He cast Enter Barrier, and the music shop before him transformed into a mystical storage area, shelves popped up in rows and lined the walls. Toward the back were a couch, a television, and a bookshelf. Industrial lights buzzed overhead, illuminating the dark red walls. Beyond the couch area was a recording room that was lined with sound cancelling foam, mixing controls just outside the room.

You have entered the Hudson Store Storage! Time is slowed by 20%! You may not take anything from any of the storage containers, and you may not add anything to them. You are only allowed to stay as long as a Hudson family member is inside!

“So this is where you keep all the magical stuff your family sells?” John asked, following her through the rows of shelves. He noticed that some of the boxes seemed overstuffed, and wondered if he could look in them. His thoughts were interrupted by her reply.

“Not really. We don’t really sell much magic stuff. This is mostly mundane stuff that we had no place for. Honestly, most of this stuff isn’t even for sale, it’s just in storage,” she explained, spying the pick she was looking for on the edge of a shelf that bordered the couch area. “Oh! Speaking of which, this box is one of the only ones with Abyssal stuff, and it’s got something in here you might need.”

She opened the white box in question, which was at the top of the stack, and pulled out a white certificate, which had a website, and the figure “$3,000” on it. ”While you do that, I’m going to move some stuff around. Give me a little bit.” With a pat on his butt, she handed him the gift certificate and walked off. He used Spy on it, as it had fine print, and having a pop-up would be easier than trying to read it.

The Ticket To Your Dreams
Seriously? Well, this thing is a $3,000 credit to the most used website in the Abyss, and the fine print will give the creator of the ticket $3,000 as well. Just type https://tinyurl.com/AAucUSA into your phone and have fun. And don’t be so lazy!

John did just that, turning on his phone and surprisingly connecting to wi-fi. “You get wifi in this barrier?” he called out questioningly, to which Jenny yelled back an affirmative. Loading up the aforementioned website, he noticed it was something called the “Abyss Auction” and seemed to sell everything, from packages of normal paper to legendary spears, like a golden one called the “Spear of Armageddon.” Its image made it look totally hardcore, but its description was lackluster. Either way, despite its name, there were plenty of things John could buy instantly. He typed Sig Sauer P320 into a search bar and “ammunition,” and was delighted to find that he could get over a thousand bullets for less than $200. There were multiple sellers, but they all appeared to be mostly the same and have mostly the same prices. He chose the middle road, exactly $200, and the description sounded like the ammo was factory made and brand new, with no special characteristics.

He immediately placed the order and noticed that it was taken from a figure at the top of the page, labeled “in store credit,” which brought it down to $2,800. Nice, I’m probably never running out of ammo again. He sat down on the couch and noticed that a drone appeared at a window he hadn’t previously noticed.

“You can let that thing in,” Jenny called from the other room, followed by a loud crash and her cursing loudly; “It’s an Abyss Auctions delivery drone, just make sure to keep the window open to let it out.” John followed her instructions, and the drone deposited a medium sized box in the middle of the room, the box pristine and containing a second, metallic box. John opened the second box to reveal neatly lined up brass bullets, like soldiers ready to be deployed. He pulled the box into his inventory and noticed that a number next to his gun jumped up to twelve, while the box’s number jumped down to nine-hundred eighty eight. The drone beeped once, bumped into him once, and flew away.

John sat back down on the couch and began scrolling through the Auction’s website again. Most of the stuff on here is way out of my price range! All this stuff costs tens of thousands of dollars! What the hell! He looked up handguns that took 9mm bullets and refined the search to less than ten-thousand dollars. There were few results other than mundane guns, but one caught his eye. A pair of guns called Ebony and Ivory. He couldn’t Spy the guns from his phone, so he had to read the description.

Ebony and Ivory
Price: $10,000
Material: Shaped from molten, rune-infused piano keys into 98% melodinium. (2% junk I found lying around; medium largely unaffected.)
This pistol duo has been modeled around the pistols from the “Devil May Cry” series, modified to use 9mm rounds! The wielder's willpower energizes the trigger, infusing it with a scaling power that then transfers to the magical mechanisms within each gun. Ivory features a rune-tempered barrel, suitable for its low-power, fully-automatic fire to enchant every bullet; Ebony features glow sights and a seeker hammer, injecting suitably high power and luck charms into every semi-automatically fired round. These firearms have been mass produced and tested within a 95% variance. Check out other stuff we sell, such as much further enhanced versions of these firearms!

Well, it’s something to work toward, John thought as he bookmarked the page. He sighed as he took the Sig Sauer P320 out of his inventory and used Craft on it to see if he could modify it with anything expendable he had. Sadly, he could only repair it to pristine condition, which he did for the cost of $100.

“I would get off that couch, my parents had sex on it like a hundred times,” Jenny commented as she walked by, laughing at his disgusted reaction. She had a pensive look for a moment, before taking it back, “Actually, that’s the new couch. They haven’t used that one, but I have once or twice.” He was less disgusted at that and sat back down. “So you wanna get in my bag now?” Jenny asked with a playful grin, unzipping her bass case with the golden zipper and holding it open for him; “I’m told the void inside is like space, but you can breathe. The stuff in there is mostly harmless. When you want to get out, just yell up, and I’ll set it down.”

“Eh, why not,” John said as he stepped into the bag and noticed that his foot sunk into the nothingness. He fell inwards and floated inside; discarded gum wrappers, new packages of different kinds of candy, medical supplies, and other stuff too far away to make out floated freely. “This is pretty cool!” John called up with an echo, and Jenny laughed down at him.

“I know! It’s so cool!” Jenny called down to him, closely followed by an