-Carl Bard

A skill has leveled up!
Crafting - Level 2: You are now able to use objects in the environment which cannot be stored inside of inventory.

Skill Innovation! New Skill learned!

Harvest Level 1 - Consume a nearby resource node to gain the items stored within, as long as the proper tool is available and your inventory can store all items created. Mana Cost: Variable, dependent on resources harvested (quantity and value).

"Fuckin'… mushroom… I'm the goddamn Gamer, don't tell me what I can or can't learn" John spat out as the last piece of the tree trunk disappeared into his inventory. He'd dumped enough items into his Abyssal Chest that he now had plenty of room, and he'd used a significant amount of it to store every piece of wood that came out of the fallen tree.

"Actually, all I said was-"

"Fuck off," John spat, wiping his mouth as he turned back toward the campsite. Despite Gamer's Body tempering his exhaustion, he was beyond tired from his exertion, showing that even his newfound abilities had some kind of limits. It started to fade away the moment that he stopped his efforts, but he still had lingering fatigue, something he hadn't felt in almost a week now. During his darker days of World of Warcraft, just walking up the stairs would've taken some effort, but now it felt like he'd been through a war and been only a bit sluggish afterward.

"Now I just have to figure out how to actually build the thing," John noted mentally, enjoying the relaxing walk for the opportunity to rest and the silence. Whatever Natty was, and however (inadvertently) helpful he'd been, John was grateful he at least stayed silent on occasion.

John returned to the campsite with just over fifteen minutes to spare until his World Shift finally came off cooldown. Not bad, considering he'd never actually disassembled an entire tree before. It would've taken a little less time if he hadn't wasted so much time figuring out his capacity for an individual piece of wood. He was just glad that the items stacked - he hadn't found a limit to his inventory yet, and he hoped he never would. The only inventory management he'd done so far was to dump a bunch of shit he didn't have any use for off in the Abyssal Chest.

"Welcome back," Seras said with a smile.

"Thanks, Seras. Lunaya's back, why don’t we take a little walk? I want your opinion on something."

Seras seemed uncertain when John mentioned wanting her opinion, but she nodded all the same. A bit disappointed that he wasn't spending more time with his Purified friends in a non-hostile situation, John knew all the same that he needed to do what he was about to do. With so much time to think as he felled and divided up that tree, a few things had come to John.

They walked in a silence - John liked to think that it was comfortable, but judging by Seras' erratic steps and the constant looks she was throwing him, it wasn't received as such on the other end. Thankfully he hadn't planned to go far - just enough to distance themselves from the original campsite and bring the lake to the south back into view. As soon as John glimpsed the sparkling waters, he brought them to a stop and cast his gaze off into the distance.

"So… I don’t know how much of a landscape kind of person you are, but what do you think of the view here?"

"The… view? Um…" Seras trailed off, looking around. John had to admit, it wasn't all that much of a view. There were trees to the north, but they were distant. There was a lake, but it was plain and without wildlife to flavor its shores. All the same, it was the best he could think of in this new world, high enough on one of the rare hills in the relatively flat land to see all the way across the lake while still being close enough to the original campsite that neither destination was too far away. The forest was several minutes further, but hopefully there wouldn't be such a need for privacy or trees once John put some work into a proper foundation.

"I guess it's alright. Why, you got somethin' in mind 'ere?"

John paused for a long moment, abandoning that line of questioning for the time. When he spoke again, he tried to remain jovial, but a serious tone layered over his innocent questioning from earlier.

"Seras," John muttered, glancing out toward the lake. If he ignored the lack of a breeze and the fact the sun never set, he could almost imagine he was back at home. "I know we've been rushed through a lot the last few days, I think I know that better than anyone. How have you been handling…?"

"Everything?"

"Yeah," John agreed with a laugh, "I guess literally everything."

Seras chuckled with him. The calm stillness of the lake was a bit jarring, and added to the awkward silence that followed the laughter. With no breezes and no living creatures, it was eerily still. John made a note to buy some fish next time he had the chance. Anything was better than looking at the world as if it were a single moment frozen in time forever.

"I'm… I'm alright," Seras eventually said, carefully not looking at John while she spoke. "I mean… you've been 'elpin' me a lot, and I think without you I'd've gone crazy or died already, but it's still kind of jarring. Still comin' to terms with it all, you know?"

"Yeah, I doubt a week and a few conversations are going to help anyone deal with something that big. I've had someone educating me on how ignorant I've been my whole life, and I still feel like I don't know anything. It's like… my entire perspective shifted, and I don't even recognize myself in the mirror from who I was a few days ago. Not physically, but just… my day-to-day concerns, how I think about things, the problems I'm dealing with. The new one isn't bad, it's just kind of been thrown at me, and I have no idea where my old one even went."

"Kinda like you're livin' someone else's life, but you don' even really want the old one back? 'Cause it wasn't all that great, but it was the only thing you had?"

"Yes, exactly!" John wheezed, smiling as he turned toward Seras. The vampiress met his gaze at last, smiling sadly at him and their shared displacement. "I don't really want to go back to being a nerd who sits in his house all day, I just… kind of wish I'd made the choice."

"I don' really mind bein' a vampire an' all, but I kinda wonder if I'd be 'ere at all if I had the choice," Seras quietly replied. "N-not that I mind you, Master, you've been great! Way beyond great, you've done everythin' I-"

"Calm down, breathe, then speak."

"I… It's jus' tha'… when I think back on stuff that I went through, and I realize tha' they're all just these fake memories of people who ain't real, it kinda feels like nothin' I did matters, and now I don' even know what's actually real. Woulda almost been nicer never knowin’ I was fake..."

"The Matrix theory?" John suggested. Seras raised an eyebrow in confusion, and John shook his head.

"Never mind. Well… I think that what you remember matters." John turned back toward the lake and gently sat himself on the grass, legs crossed and enjoying the sights despite their uncanny stillness. Seras knelt beside him on one knee, arms wrapped around her other leg. Her blonde hair rustled against her jacket as she muffled her voice inside her sleeve.

"It does? A buncha fake people and places?"

"Well, what if they're not fake? Magic is real, anything can be real," John suggested, shrugging. "And besides, even if they aren't real, they made you who you are today. That's important, because that's someone I like very much."

"M-Master…?"

"I know our situations are really different, but I think we're feeling a lot of similar things. That's why I wanted you to come here; I think we're both kind of missing a direction to go in life. We got thrown into this headfirst with no preparation, and now we don’t really know where to go. Moira said something like that to me a few days ago. She asked me what I wanted to do with this power, what my own personal goals would be now that I knew about this weird magical world."

"What did you say?"

"I told her the truth - that I have no fucking idea," John guffawed, slumping backwards into the grass and gazing up at the distant sky. "When I was a kid, I always dreamed about something like this happening, about superpowers and magic and all this wicked awesome shit from video games. Turns out when you actually get magic, you're still just you, but with magic. I was just as scared, just as physically incapable, and knew just as little about what I wanted in life as before I got these abilities."

"What about now?" Seras asked, picking up on the past tense in John’s words. He sat back up and shrugged.

"Now, I've had a few days to think about things. Everything, I guess. A few near-**** experiences aside, the past few days have been great, but I've just kind of been going with the flow. I know I want to get stronger, but that’s a means, not an end. I want to make sure that I can protect myself and all of you. But “getting stronger” feels like a path, not a goal. I haven’t really had one of those in a long time. Nothing from my old life applies anymore. Using magical abilities and physical enhancements to become the best MOBA player really seems kind of lame in comparison to everything else now.

"No, I think I need something more… me," John said, nodding to himself as he pondered his words carefully. "I always liked building games, of all kinds. Civilization is awesome, plus all the strategy games out there, and if Spore had been half the game we got promised…"

John shook his head direly at the thought of how many countless hours he could've lost to that, had it been the branching evolution game he'd originally imagined.

"Anyway, I enjoy that stuff. And I've kind of been missing a purpose. So the reason I came out here at all, the reason I asked you for your opinion on the view, and what I think I can help you with… is that I want to build a home here, for us. For all of us, eventually, but for starters just a real place to live in this strange world. These powers are awesome, but in stumbling into them I created the Nekos, and since then you and Lunaya have joined up, and I've barely given them a proper place to live. If it ever rained here, I'd feel like a real piece of shit. You come with me when I leave, but they need somewhere they can actually call a home."

"So you wanna build a house? Is that why you went off to the woods?"

John nodded. "Like I said, I've got to grow stronger now. I thought maybe I could just glide by, but going to the mall proved that we could be in danger at any time now. But if I'm going to do that, I might as well make the most out of it, right? I'm gonna gather all kinds of crap from dungeons and fighting and leveling up… I want to put it to good use. From now on, I want to focus on making this place amazing. And I want you to help me!"

"M-me? Why me? What about Lunaya, and-"

"Seras," John said, standing up slowly. "I know that I kind of messed up your life. A lot. But I want to make it up to you, and so far all I've done is drag you into danger and give you a place to sleep. I can't really bring back your old world, but… I think together, maybe, we could make a new one."

John smiled as wide as he could, holding out his arm.

"It's not really fair that you're the only one **** to endure all these new places you've never seen before, right? So let's make some new ones nobody has ever seen, and let's experience them together! This ability to create sections of land with a few points and generate resources by killing shit means that we can literally make anything, if we just work hard enough. Today it's a house, tomorrow a mansion, and next week a castle. We'll form oceans and mountains and fill it with a ton of amazing people, like you!"

"A-amazing?!" Seras stumbled, shaking her head. "I don' even know how to be a good vampire, how can I help you build a whole world?!"

"I told you that I like who you are, Seras," John replied without hesitation. "You're awesome. Seriously friggin' awesome - like for a second, can we just step back and realize how badass a police-officer-turned-immortal-vampire is? You kick ass on so many levels, and just as the cherry on top, you're a great person. You were fighting crime as a regular human, and I won't be a superhero because people won't remember me."

"You jus' said-"

"Seras," John cut her off seriously, extending his hand, "in all honesty, I have a huge amount of respect for what I know you can do - for what I've seen you do now. I also know a lot about the person you are and the person you could be. That's… actually kind of unfair, now that I say it out loud. But it's important, because I trust you more than anyone else, even Moira! Shit, I'm pretty sure she still half wants me dead. I can't give you back the life you had... but you can have a new one, and I think this is a good way to start."

"I… I don’t know," Seras said hesitantly. "Are you sure that's a good idea? What if I'm different than I was in your story? I don't know much besides fightin', shootin', and policin'. An' 'ow can I help you build a world, when I don' even know if this one is real? I could wake up tomorrow somewhere to'ally different…"

"I guess holding your abilities to a future that doesn't exist anymore isn't really fair, huh? Doesn’t matter if you're different though," John stated certainly. "You're Seras Victoria, and going down a different path won't change who you are at your core. As for knowing it's real… I guess I can't really prove anything, can I? That's a trust you'll have to build on your own. Could take a while, but I hope it'll get easier with time. Until then, though, what do you want to do? You’re smart, brave, and sure as hell determined. If you don’t want my path, I trust you to find your own."

"I… don' know. I became a police officer to- no, I guess you know why," Seras said a bit sheepishly, glancing away. "Bad memories an' all that. But I don' think that's gonna 'appen here. You got all these abilities, an' all I can do is fight, so… I guess for now, that's what I want to do."

Seras nodded and punched her left palm, glancing up with a toothy grin that exposed both of her fangs in a dangerous way that contrasted with the rest of her happy face.

"Right, until I can feel safe that I'm not gonna just disappear and wake up somewhere else again, I wanna pay you back! You've been supportin' me this whole time with food, clothes, and a roof. I'm gonna support you, however I can, and I’ll help you buildin’ this place if that’s what you want!"

Seras reached out and gripped John’s arm, pulling herself back to her feet. Together, they stared at each other for one moment longer before gazing off toward the lake.

"Thanks, Seras," John replied. This conversation veered off the rails a little bit, but he felt satisfied. Seras hadn't been convinced to go down his path, exactly… but he wasn't surprised. She was always strong-willed, and even if she was a good little soldier when it came to following orders, John really did trust her to find her own path. He hadn’t been able to save her from her anxiety and sadness, but then-

Then again, he realized with a bit of embarrassment, when had she ever needed saving? John fought the urge to shake his head at his own naivety. A few days with powers, and here he was already thinking himself some kind of hero to people who were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves.

"Right… well, you can stay or go back to camp. I've got a mission."

"Let's start on this house!"