Chapter 25 – The Weekend

“Draw Four.” John said.

“Draw Six.” Jimmie countered.

“Draw E-eight.” John fired right back.

“Draw twelve!” Jimmie triumphantly roared.

“Wait…since w-when can you put +4 on +2s?” John questioned and reached for the rulebook.

“House Rules.” Jimmie said and crossed his arms.

“Yeah, no, you c-can’t just introduce h-house rules mid game...” John muttered as he went through the pages. “No, nothing of the sort in here. D-draw Eight or give up.”

“Give me that.”

“You guys are so laaaaaame.” Rave shouted over from the arcade machines. The constant noise of smashing buttons and moving joysticks came from the wall of old game systems.

“You w-wanted to stay a bit.” John reminded her.

“Jimmie’s like a cat, if ya never pay any attention to him at all he’s gonna get all fat and lonely.”

The mechanic was lighting a cigarette as he went through the small rulebook. “As if I need you guys for company.” He grumbled and adjusted his cap.

“You would just keep working on that robot of yours.”

“Is there anything wrong with that?”

“It just shows that ya got no game whatsoever. Even the nerd’s hanging out with more girls than you.”

Jimmy didn’t respond to that insult, only threw John a semi-jealous glance. The Gamer pretended not to notice. According to Observe, Jimmie had a bit of interest in Rave. It was understandable, who wouldn’t have an interest when they were hanging around a woman like her? Whatever he was feeling for her wasn’t strong enough to actually act on it though. He also wasn’t the guy she had lost her virginity to. Apparently that had been some mundane party goer that she since had cut all ties with.

John had been learning a few things between Wednesday and the weekend. About Jimmie, Rave, and just how to behave in general. He still put his foot in his mouth more than he was happy to admit. He still had a stutter. He still had no idea what to do. Yet, there was improvement. Quicker and more notable than at any point in his life.

He was starting to wonder if he really needed those powers or if he had just needed a motivator to leave the house.

“Okay, I give up. You win.” Jimmie tossed the manual and his remaining cards on the table. “I’ll go work on that ‘robot’. At least it doesn’t give me lip.” While he walked away, two windows popped up in front of John.

The Quest had popped up after Rave had told him they would stay in the arcade a bit. He hadn’t aimed for the Optional goal and he wasn’t sure if he had cleared it or if Rave’s comments had done it. No matter, the system had rewarded him with the easiest EXP since the first Quest. If only these popped up more regularly.

‘Okay. I have several questions.’ John thought. ‘First-off, why do things always happen like this? Second, What the hell are those rewards? Third, what even is a Skill Evolution Point? Is it worth foregoing an extra item, more experience and a bigger dick?’

“New Achievement?” Rave asked as she jumped over. Literally, she jumped on top of one of the arcade machines and then over to where he was sitting. It was in a realm on par with or beyond that of Olympian athletes. John didn’t even question that part at this point.

‘The human brain gets used to anything after three days,’ was a saying he had heard before and he believed it held true in his case. Even the image of the mangled corpse no longer popped up in his mind uninvited. This was just what his life was now.

“Or another Quest? ‘Cause when ya said ya got one to annoy Jimmie, I was pretty hyped about it.”

“Y-yeah… you’re really good at guessing what I think, you know that?”

“Not hard when you’re staring into the air instead of at my butt. Don’t think ya got more in there than nerd and horny.” She tapped his cranium a few times. “Anyway, do we have to annoy Jimmie more? I love doing that.”

“Ehm, n-no… It…” He cleared his throat. “It wants me to have sex… p-preferably with you.”

“Hah, good luck with that.” Rave bowed down next to his ear. “Ya doing pretty well for the first week though…” She suddenly shot up. John was concerned for a second, then she hummed. “Huh, we’ve been hanging out… how many hours?”

“About 40,” John answered nearly immediately. He had done the math yesterday because his thoughts were circling around her most of the time anyway. They’d been out and about together every day from when school ended up until 9 or 10 PM. His mom hadn’t said anything about it after the first time and Rave’s place was always empty.

“Nerd.” She gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder. “Still, I saw more of ya than I usually see of Jimmy or Travolta in a month… or ever.” She bowed back down and whispered in his ear. “You’re definitely on the right track, tiger.”

And just like that all of his blood went downstairs again. “Being a-around you could be hazardous for my health.” John complained as he adjusted his pants to be a little less constricting. Now it was his turn to notice her stare at a window in the air.

“Nah, your HP is fine,” she stated, having checked the party interface. “Also you’re catching up to me, so I’m doing a good job carrying your butt.”

John had reached level 12 on Friday. Much of the past two days had been spent doing the usual, with the only difference being that he actually provided supportive fire now. With Mana Power attack, he could kill a Lower Ghost with five shots. He also only had the mana for six shots.

Rave had reached level 17. Took her a massive amount of ghosts murdered, but a level was a level.

“So, you finally gonna do it?”

“Uhm…?” He was still mentally caught on the whole ‘Lose your Virginity’ Quest. “I don’t… unless- Ow!” He stopped when she flicked his forehead.

“Your Stats, Gamer. Get your mind out of the gutter,” she reprimanded him.

“Right, r-right,” he agreed sheepishly. He had told her about his inability to choose last night. The answer she had for that was that she was going to: ‘Drag his butt to a decision, because she was way too interested in seeing what was going to happen’.

John wasn’t sure if he appreciated her reasoning being more curiosity, but he did need the shove to finally make a decision. It was beyond inefficient to sit on these points for so long. He was artificially keeping himself weak.

He looked at his Stats. The summoner build still was what he had resolved to do, but the attack of the Wall Shadow had been a wake-up call regarding the dangers of having a familiar stronger than himself – and of the chaos of combat in general. “Are there summoners in the Abyss? Like… p-people that use… l-loyal familiars?”

“Depends on your definition of loyalty, I guess. I know there’s some necromancers, although most people… ya know, murder them pretty quick. Nobody likes having a guy looking for corpses in the neighbourhood. There’s golems and such, those don’t typically question their creator, I think? Elementalists, like me, also can contract elementals and those relationships are supposed to be friendly. Something about elementals liking to hang around this plane, dunno.”

The single reason John regretted not having chosen Moira was that Rave truly was awful at explaining things. “Why?” the techno lover asked.

“Because I am feeling c-committed to Possession and am thinking a-about what I can work towards that works with it.” Rave tilted her head, so John elaborated further. “I-if I could possess a really s-strong body, like a s-summoned spider or a g-golem, I won’t have to get as deep into Physic-cal Stats.”

“Sounds like ya need to learn how to enchant stuff,” Rave thought. “Wait a second.”

Rave dashed off towards the staircase. She vanished upstairs. John wondered what was up there. He hadn’t yet had an excuse to go there. Far as he knew, it was where Travolta lived. On her way back down, Rave jumped over the railing and ran back over. She presented him with a book. ‘Basics of Supernatural Crafting’ the title read. Not knowing what else to do, John took it.

“Baldy was reading this last year, he won’t mind if it’s missing. Ya can borrow it, maybe learn what ya need, I dunno.” Rave shrugged.

“Okay?” John asked and looked at the window with a puzzled expression. ‘There is no reason not to, right?’ he asked himself and pushed the button.

Just like that the book was gone. “Wha-?” Rave said, “Did you put it into your inventory?” John wasn’t listening, he was way too busy getting used to the fact that his mind was suddenly filled with an entire book’s worth of words and the understanding related to those words.

“Hello? Earth to Johnny.” Rave snapped her fingers in front of his face a couple of times. Finally, he snapped out of it.

“S-sorry. I just…well I just learned everything in that book instantly.”

Rave laughed, then stopped when he didn’t laugh with her. “Bullshit.”

“No really, it said it was a Skillbook so I could instantly learn it.” John tried to defend himself.

“No, no I believe you. Its just bullshit is what it is, ya know?” Rave looked like she had seen somebody burn a shed full of 100 Dollar notes. “I mean - wat?”

Understandable reaction. “Do you have any more books?”

“None Baldy wouldn’t miss I’m afraid.” Rave calmed down and started laughing. “That is ridiculous though.”

“Agreed.” He wasn’t sure yet if these two Skills would actually come in useful for anything specific. He didn’t see himself as a crafter long-term. In most games he played, he was happy to do the resource grind but he preferred buying the items in exchange for the currency he earned doing that. ‘Better to have it than not though.’ “S-so I can… g-get the Skills I need.”

“If you have the books.” Rave reminded him, “Which cost a lot of bucks by the way, you just evaporated around 5000 dollars.”

John’s eyes almost popped out of his skull. “W-w-w-w-what? US dollars?”

“Yeah, it was one of the cheaper ones, I know.” Rave said.

John tried to single out the sarcasm in her voice but there was none. “How is there so much money in this? How does no one notice THAT?”

“Money laundering.” Rave just said. “It’s how a lot of people in the Abyss keep their head above water. Shell companies and all that. Dunno, ask my dad, the Abyss Auction takes care of most of it.”

That information was almost more shocking than the attack of the nightmare centipede in his school. What the hell? He thought the Abyss would use some fantasy currency, but they used USD as well? How did that even work? John did his best to remain calm. Past the initial shock, that was pretty easy. His thoughts evened out and his heartbeat followed. “Okay, so if I have the mo-money, I can get more books and get a better build…it might t-take a long time but once I get there things will be easy so I should c-choose a build now.” John decided. “If I stick with Possession I need to have a body that c-can fight as my frontline and protection Skills to keep my actual body safe. That is the core. I guess something like a mana shield would be the best for protection….” Rave just stayed silent while he mumbled to himself. “Stealth could also be useful but it takes too much mana to level right now….yeah it comes down to mana again. I guess I need to up Int and Wis.”

The decision was made. He had 40 points to distribute. He put the majority into Wisdom, raising it from 15 to 40, he also raised intellect from 25 to 35. After a glance at Rave, he put the last 5 points into Charisma. He was making progress with her but doubling his miserable Charisma was hopefully going to make him less… inept. He feared that, once the novelty wore off, Rave wouldn’t tolerate him just for the occasionally good joke.

The effects were stupendously good. His Mana Regeneration rose from 0,5 all the way to 4,5 thanks to a new mechanic he discovered.

His Mana Pool had similarly exploded. Although his Intellect had already been 25, it seemed the system had required it growing at least once to register that fact.

“Wow, I can actually see that,” Rave stated. “So ya spent all your points?”

“Yeah,” John responded and smiled at her. No quiver to the side of his lips, no uncertainty in it, he just smiled like a normal person. Somehow, that was enough to make Rave blush a bit. “Got way more mana, how can you see that?”

“…Can ya repeat that?” Rave asked.

“I got way more mana, can you see that?”

Rave tilted her head. “One more time?”

“…Is this some kind of joke I am not getting o-… wait a second… my stutter is gone. My stutter is gone!” John jumped to his feet and laughed. He had been fighting that damn thing since childhood and at the click of a button, it was eliminated. Without thinking, he turned to her and gave her a quick peck on the lips. “Thank you!”

Rave’s blush went from slight to manifest. “I just did what I wanted to anyway, don’t make it such a big deal,” she told him, while tugging at her hair. “…You put points into Charisma too, didn’t you? You have way less…” she stopped for a moment and rubbed where tired and genetically unfortunate people had bags under their eyes. “…these.”

“Yeah, put it to 10!” Rave wrinkled her forehead. “It was at 5.”

“Huh… I didn’t think ya were that bad,” Rave said. “Just hella awkward.”

John felt like kissing her all over again, but he reined himself in. “Ehem,” he cleared his throat. “so, what did you mean by seeing my mana grow?”

“You can’t do it yet? Basically every Abyssal has like… a second sight or whatever you call it? It’s just a very basic thing that lets you differentiate the mundanes from the Abyssals. Kinda like… you can take a glimpse at the power of their soul. Some people can do more with it. Like, the Order has seers who can trace anyone.

John shook his head, he had never heard of that. Moira had mentioned something similar, but he thought it was more limited. “Maybe it's been replaced with Observe? Wait, how did Moira no- Ah, right.” He stopped when Rave stuck her tongue out and presented the piercing again. “Wait… so if everyone can do that…” He let out a deep sigh. “I just made myself an even bigger target for mana factory goons, didn’t I?”

“Yup, congratz. Absolutely no way ya getting out of the Abyss now – guess you’re stuck with me. Speaking of getting stuck with me, wanna go while it’s still morning?”

“Sure,” he responded with a deep nod.