Job's Done!

As John hit the edge of the barrier, he was transported back to the courtyard outside of the skyscraper. His collar was off, and David immediately appeared on his shoulder in his incorporeal form. He nuzzled John before disappearing again. Abigail was waiting for him, but Ixlius was nowhere in sight. The other applicants had either already failed or not passed yet. Their instructor was waiting for them while writing something on a notepad with her quill, sat on a translucent, blue-green chair. Though the color was completely off, it looked like a Mana Construct John would make. Upon noticing John, she looked up, “Congratulations Mr. Newman. You escaped, but the test is not yet over. Please go back to the conference room in which we began with Ms. Firenzia. There will be screens there, you may select eight people from the trial that you believe to be real.”

“Our equipment and clothes?” John asked, which caused Jessica to narrow her eyes at him. She finished writing something on her notepad with a harsh scrape of the quill.

“If you wish you may retrieve them first; it should all be in the level one armory,” a cross Albyn responded, flipping the page in her pad.

“You mind?” John asked, heading toward the building, slightly more relaxed despite Albyn’s terse response.

“Not at all! It’ll be nice to get out of tight linen and back into loose, baggy cotton and fur,” Abigail joked as she followed John back. As she said it, John noticed that her prisoner clothes were suggestive in an entirely different way than her normal clothes. The outfit he had seen her wearing before was revealing and minimal, tight around her bouncy bits and loose around her muscles. He had noted when he had been first thinking about it that it probably made movement easier, but at the time he had been so anxious that he hadn’t considered how hot it was.

Her prisoner clothes had the opposite appeal. They covered everything and were tight everywhere. Despite being a nearly full-body jumpsuit, they left little to the imagination as they were clearly made for a body less full and muscular than Abigail’s. Weird that Hercules didn’t have that problem. Is that sexist? If it is, is it because that’s how Abyssal prisons are or is it because that’s how the Rider Waites are? John, lost in thought, had been staring at Abigail the entire time as they walked.

“You could stare all day if you wanted… or you could try and fight me for a taste of the real thing,” Abigail offered, eager to fight again even fresh off the harsh trial they had just faced.

John had no good answer. If he accepted, he would either win, and have to turn her down, or lose. It would also be admitting that he had been ogling her, which he wasn’t doing at the end… technically. If he refused, it would be insulting to her fighting spirit and body.

Luckily, Abigail’s laughter broke him out of his predicament, “I’ll take that as a no, for now, but you’re going to fight me one way or another,” she said, punching his arm. Though she was definitely holding back, John was ashamed to admit to himself that it still hurt.

Man, I thought I was strong, but it feels like she is to me what I am to a normal person, John thought, opening the door for her. “Maybe someday, if I train for a couple months while you take it easy,” John replied. “Alright, the armory is on sublevel one; we can just take the stairs down.” With that, John and Abigail both raced down the stairs, eager to replace their uncomfortable clothes.

They made it down, and John placed his card in a slot by the door, which opened it for them. As they walked in, the same robotic voice as in the lobby announced, “John Newman and Abigail Firenzia. John Newman has one pocket dimension, which has one object in it. Abigail Firenzia does not have a pocket dimension. Please proceed to storage crates 2A and 2B respectively.”

They walked toward the crates they had put their gear in, and John was happy to find the clothes that were confiscated when he first entered the prison. He opened his equipment screen and inserted his gear into one of his three equipment loadouts, switching to it and then taking the prison clothes out of the other. He pocketed the rest back into his inventory.

Abigail didn’t have such a simple solution. “I’ll meet you up there. I’m going to go find a changing room or something.” Nodding simply, John left her to her own devices and headed toward the exit.

As he walked through the exit, the voice sounded again, “John Newman departing, crate 2A now available.”

For the first time since he had gotten here, aside from the brief moment where he thought he had beaten Sickle, John felt at ease. He had made a friend, proved himself in combat, and escaped an Abyssal prison. Surely the worst is behind me, John thought as he climbed up the stairs toward the conference room they had met in.

He entered the room which was empty save for Ixlius and Andor sitting on opposite ends of the table each scrolling through a screen with a finger. How did Andor escape before us?. Andor nodded at him nervously, and Ixlius gave him a big smile and an exaggerated wave. John decided to sit next to Andor, and looked at the screen in front of him. It had a glowing hand on it, so John put his hand onto it. Immediately, a five across grid of heads loaded onto the screen, which looked to be a similar size to his computer screen back home, about twenty-five inches. Male and female faces were mixed in to the initial screen, though he recognized few of them.

Immediately, Glasses and the Warden stood out to him. He selected them both as Abigail came into the room. She flashed him a friendly smile, scowled at Ixlius, and looked confused about Andor’s presence. Taking a seat next to John, she put her hand on the screen and the same faces loaded in for her. She selected the same ones John had, before silently pointing to a blonde guard with a ponytail and tapping on her. John selected the same guard and they both scrolled down to the next screen. John pointed out the dark elf he had realized was a real person (though a prisoner) and they both selected him. Squeaky was next, and Abigail pointed out a female guard below him that looked absolutely vampiric.

Her face seemed familiar to John, and with a start he realized it was the bartender from Jarako. Have these people been following me? It can’t be a coincidence… He selected the vampire in the midst of his revelation, and scrolled further. “That’s five, we’re totally in the clear,” John said, selecting the guard he had knocked out during the yard fight, Abigail doing the same. She pointed out two more female guards on the next page, and John felt fairly confident about their answers. Abigail showed no signs of nervousness, though that was no surprise considering the fountain of unending confidence she had been thus far.

“Alright, that should be good, right?” Abigail said, scrolling down further. Apparently, they were one grid away from the accept button at the bottom. As they both hit accept, John turned to Andor, who was apparently already done.

“So, how did you make it out before us, Andor? What happened?” Andor turned to him, face flushed, and began.

“W-well, when all that fighting was happening, I hid under an **** orc while Abigail was fighting and changed into the outfit of an **** guard. I must have gotten pretty l-lucky. They brought me with the other knocked out guards to a hospital area. After that, all I had to do was pretend to wake up and walk out. If any real guards had seen me, I probably would have been done for…” Andor finished. “My name is Valencia by the way.”

“So my plan did work, for the most skilled of us,” Ixlius called smugly, causing all three of them, even the reserved Valencia, to glare at him. He merely sat back in his chair, feet on the table in response. “Hey, you got out, didn’t you?”

Their exchange was interrupted by Jessica entering the room, stern as ever. “Alright, you four are the only ones who passed the first part of the test. You’re also all done entering your information for the second part of the test. I will now tell each of you how you did. Starting with… Ixlius Ixwich.”

The pale man was the only one in the room not to shrink under the intensity of their instructor’s gaze and words.