“So, let’s ask the obvious first: Anybody knows what that is?” John asked and gestured at the thing on the table. “If it helps, Herman called it a Metracana.”
“It does not, I have no clue what it is.” The response from Lydia immediately extinguished most of John’s hope of identifying the item.
John looked over to Rave, but she just shrugged and shook her head. Continuing on to Thana, who just looked at the thing with understandable hatred (it had been stuck in her head for the longest time), yielded nothing else. Aside from these the only person who maybe could know something John didn’t was Siena.
‘Do you?’ John asked in his head.
‘Mhhhh,’ Siena moaned teasingly in response. ‘Let's say I did, what do I get in return?’ ‘
‘You would get ten minutes to try and kill me or thirty minutes alone with me in bed,’ he offered, he was way immensely curious about this thing.
‘Too bad I know nothing then,’ Siena lamented. ‘It would have been fun to try and stab you.’
John sighed, so her priority was still murdering him. Well, not entirely unexpected. “Why don’t ya just use Observe?” Rave asked.
“Yeah, funny story,” John said and did. He had tried this before, after Herman had ‘blanked’ the item. Since then he could put it into his inventory and use Observe without getting a headache but…
“It’s blank. Aside from it being called Metracana Metra and the creator being a ‘Sargon of Akkad’, guess Google is where we should take this now,” John whipped out his smartphone.
Rave did the same, “I will check the auction for info on Metracana.”
John’s search yielded two results. A: a Youtuber who made politically motivated videos, and B: a peasant turned king who built the first historically recorded empire in Mesopotamia in about 2300 BC. The latter one seemed more likely as the source.
Rave’s search resulted in next to nothing. “Yeah, well, it seems like we have stumbled into one of the better hidden secrets in the Abyss,” she said with a gleeful expression. “Which I find C-o-o-l, there isn’t a lot of stuff out there hidden enough that you won’t even FIND it on the auction. Wait, nevermind, here is something… behind a 2 Trillion US Dollar paywall though.”
“How much?” Lydia asked before John could get a heart attack. The princess seemed in physical pain at the thought of spending that much money on information.
“2 Trillion, here,” Rave repeated and then showed the screen to each of them in turn.
“That’s a fuckton of zeros,” Thana laughed.
“And something I will not pay for your little mystery and you won’t be able to muster anytime soon,” Lydia added. “Therefore, this has no hope of a result.”
“Okay, so, to gather what little we know,” John mumbled, “this is an old Mesopotamian artifact of probably extreme worth made by the king of Akkad himself. That puts it around 4000 years old…you think we could catch up to Luna and ask her if she knows something?”
“No, but even if you could prepare to pay more than monetary compensation,” Lydia said and crossed her arms - “If I may remind you, you are still indebted to me. Push this endeavour into a timeslot after our current business concludes.”
“Okay, okay,” John tried his best at a calming gesture, “I will, just curious.”
“Here is another idea,” Thana interrupted, “just smash it until it is completely fucking broken. I volunteer to see that through!”
“Thana, I know that this isn’t the greatest of things you want around you,” John said, “but you will have to put up with me on this, because I am way too curious to see what this turns out to be. You don’t have to like it, but you don’t get to break it either.” With that statement he put the Metracana away. Clearly, they wouldn’t make more progress on this today, and he didn’t want to have Thana even more worked up than she already was. The day had been stressful enough.
“Okay, can you answer some other questions for me then, Lydia?” John asked.
“Make it quick,” the princess said with a look at the clock.
“The whole city is an Illusion Barrier, so I can’t use Create I.D. here, how and or where do I leave the city? I don’t want to spawn out in the middle of some private property in Rome.” Leaving an Illusion Barrier in a place that did not exist in real space had interesting effects at times. He wouldn’t just appear in the air and start falling, Gaia assured that much, but beyond that he was best advised finding safe spots to leave.
“There are public exit points all over the city, this mansion has a private one in the garden. It can only be used as an entrance point if you have a key though, so don’t forget to take one with you.”
“Are dollars accepted in Abyssal Rome?”
“Every currency is.”
“Is there a dedicated trading district or something?”
“Yes, go to the third ring, the crafters have their homes there. I recommend staying on the west side: the quality is best there, the prices are the highest, though. If you are short on money, go to the northside. That district has seen better days, and they are desperate. The quality will suffer, however.”
“Great, would you object to me just going out to buy stuff?”
“Just don’t get stuck up in an interview, don’t tell anyone anything important or do something foolish,” Lydia demanded, and that was the end of that little question session. The princess moved over to her room and left the rest of the crew to the sound of the crappy romcom still running in the background.
“I’ll go get back to that,” Thana announced and jumped over the back of the couch.
“Ya wanna go buy stuff?” Rave asked.
“Yup, namely a new flight-capable object I can possess; with Spellcarrier around I can abuse a flight unit. I will probably go grind a bit afterwards, try to get to level 81. Want to come with?”
“Kinda, but I need to be around for when the furniture arrives. Do me the favour and don’t try any of the new kinds of dungeons, okay? I wanna be around when ya do that.”
John had more than enough targets for a first-clear bonus without tackling any of the new mechanics. “Sure, we will see each other when I get back then,” John said and left the house (after taking one of the keys that lay in the hallway), alone, a moment later. Not even Aclysia had the time to accompany him.
Of course, he was never truly alone.
“Hey, hey, hey John,” Sylph palavered, just appearing next to him as he walked. “What are you going to buy? Is it cool? Tell me it is cool! Like Pew-Pew cool, like your glove cool, like Undine’s attitude towards cold water cool, like the fact that I beat Salamander’s Mario Kart record cool.”
“Well,” John laughed when he found an opening to talk, “honestly, I am just looking for a new flight unit, so probably nothing that great. My money is kind of limited after all.” He strolled through the gardens until he found the frame of a gate just standing around the place. After using Observe to confirm what it was, he turned to leave the island.
He didn’t want to leave the Illusion Barrier, not yet at least, he just wanted to know where the exit was. No, first he would stroll over the market of Rome. When he reached the edge of the mana street, he quickly checked with his elementals. Save for Undine, who was soaking in the bathtub, everyone was around him. John didn’t know WHEN Siena had slipped back into his shadow, but the fact that she had was hardly surprising. After all, the nightmare elemental was a sneaky one.
‘Undine, could you come along?’ John inquired. A confused feeling, what would she need him for? ‘I feel uncomfortable going out without my healer,’ he explained. Hesitation, then a picture of Romulus. ‘Yes, I know we are under his protection during the tournament, but I don’t want to be unprepared. I can live with not having Aclysia around, Gnome can tank as well, but I need you.’
A conflicting mixture of happiness, annoyance and confusion. ‘Fine,’ Undine finally said and, by changing into incorporeal form, made her way over to him fairly quickly. It was one of the few advantages that being incorporeal had: they could move towards John at pretty high speeds. Same couldn’t be said for away from him, though.
“Yay, the elementals are going on a date with John, long overdue, long overdue, way too long overdue,” Sylph chirped and sat down on John’s shoulder.
“I would actually prefer if you were incorporeal, Sylph,” the Gamer told his wind spirit, gently taking her off his shoulders and having her stand on his palms as he spoke to her.
“What? But that’s so boring, I don’t want boring,” the mini tempest elemental complained, her long hair cascading through the air as she turned on her heels and pouted.
“Mhm, I understand, but I don’t want to reveal you to the enemy that easily, you are one of my bigger trump cards,” John said, but Sylph continued to pout.
“I can blow the enemy just fine if they are prepared, I am Sylph,” she turned to John with her wide smile- “Hey, hey, did you know that I am awesome? Because I am! You should give me cookies!”
“Should I? You will get fat, you cute, little fairy you,” John teased and tickled Sylph’s tummy with his thumbs.
“Hihihihi,” Sylph giggled, and for a few moments, John just continued doing that. Seeing the tempest elemental and her permanently good mood always lifted his spirit in one way or another. Sure, she was annoying at times, but which one of his girls was perfect? “How about this, you still have an allowance to spend;” John told her, “Gnome is the one who decides how it will be spent in the end, but with one hundred thousand dollars, you all should get something nice. I am sure you can convince her to get at least some cookies.”
“Yay, cookies, Gnome, Gnome, can we get cookies? With lots and lots and lots of chocolate?” Sylph asked.
‘Uhm, I am sure we can find something,’ Gnome agreed.
“Yay, okay, yay, yay, I will stay bodiless for this tour, but I demand a proper going out after you have fought the first time. You don’t have to hide us after that, right, right?”
“That sounds fair,” John agreed, and the tempest elemental disappeared, the smell of sweet flowers spreading from where she just had been.
John coughed, the smell was a bit too sweet and reminded him of that one time Frank, his bully back in Springfield, had sprayed deodorant in his face. ‘I should punch that guy in the face whenever I get back to Springfield,’ John thought. ‘If I ever… with mom no longer living there and me not planning to return to Ashcroft… there are really no reasons to go back there, are there?’
As a matter of fact, John had a few painful memories of that place that he would much rather avoid. The back alley that led, HAD led, into the old Arcade, the hospital that reminded him of Herman, the street where he had killed the Bloodfallen when they had attacked him.
Looking back at it, it still surprised him how little he had cared about the loss of human life. He hadn’t ever since he had gotten these powers. Neither the strangled bodies of the rockers nor the victims of Mana Ray had fazed him. ‘I don’t enjoy killing, but I sure am more indifferent towards death than I would have thought before all of this began.’
He stopped thinking about these dark things as the mana streets carried him down towards the city of Rome. He landed on the west side of the third circle, as Lydia had recommended him to.
The streets were packed. Pretty much every house along the main street was a shop of some description. The alleyways seemed to be reserved for restaurants or coffee shops. Weapons, armour, trinkets, poisons, potions, scrolls, books, magical conveniences and items were being appraised by interested buyers. Some people recognized him as he passed by, but none approached him. The crowd was as diverse as one would expect from the heart of a Europe spanning empire. The cosmopolitan atmosphere was universal, underpinned by a thick air of old traditions.
Whatever John might think of Romulus’ ambition to kill Gaia, he had to admit that the guy was not a bad ruler. If there was anything bad that could be said about him, it would be that he was disinterested in modern developments, but the foundation he had laid was well kept and sturdy.
John buried his hands deep in his pockets and walked deeper into the trade district, checking out shops occasionally as he went. His checks were ever only out of curiosity. Apparently, mechanical dolls, like the kind he wanted, were a bit of a niche market. Maybe he should have just bought another one on the auction after all? He had decided to go out and see if the real shops would offer some more extensive services, like the clothing shop for Aclysia had done. Well, here was hoping he wasn’t wrong.
‘John,’ Siena suddenly sighed into his inner ear, ‘I have some information you would like to know. I would be willing to give it to you for five minutes of freedom to kill you. Condition being that you fight against me on your own, how about it?’
‘That would need to be pretty great information,’ John answered, inspecting a sharp looking dagger.
‘Yet you are going to agree?’ Siena asked as if the end result of this conversation was only a matter of time.
‘Probably,’ he conceded; ‘I, however, wonder what you know, that I don’t, which you promise yourself will be more entertaining if you just tell me now.’
‘I believe neither of us will be interested in the outcome of this coming to fruition. There’re more entertaining ways to tease you.’
‘I’ll agree only if I am allowed to take one other person into our fight,’ John haggled.
‘That is satisfying, a deal is struck then.’ Siena took a dramatic pause and then purred, ‘You are being followed.’
“So, let’s ask the obvious first: Anybody knows what that is?” John asked and gestured at the thing on the table. “If it helps, Herman called it a Metracana.”
“It does not, I have no clue what it is.” The response from Lydia immediately extinguished most of John’s hope of identifying the item.
John looked over to Rave, but she just shrugged and shook her head. Continuing on to Thana, who just looked at the thing with understandable hatred (it had been stuck in her head for the longest time), yielded nothing else. Aside from these the only person who maybe could know something John didn’t was Siena.
‘Do you?’ John asked in his head.
‘Mhhhh,’ Siena moaned teasingly in response. ‘Let's say I did, what do I get in return?’ ‘
‘You would get ten minutes to try and kill me or thirty minutes alone with me in bed,’ he offered, he was way immensely curious about this thing.
‘Too bad I know nothing then,’ Siena lamented. ‘It would have been fun to try and stab you.’
John sighed, so her priority was still murdering him. Well, not entirely unexpected. “Why don’t ya just use Observe?” Rave asked.
“Yeah, funny story,” John said and did. He had tried this before, after Herman had ‘blanked’ the item. Since then he could put it into his inventory and use Observe without getting a headache but…
“It’s blank. Aside from it being called Metracana Metra and the creator being a ‘Sargon of Akkad’, guess Google is where we should take this now,” John whipped out his smartphone.
Rave did the same, “I will check the auction for info on Metracana.”
John’s search yielded two results. A: a Youtuber who made politically motivated videos, and B: a peasant turned king who built the first historically recorded empire in Mesopotamia in about 2300 BC. The latter one seemed more likely as the source.
Rave’s search resulted in next to nothing. “Yeah, well, it seems like we have stumbled into one of the better hidden secrets in the Abyss,” she said with a gleeful expression. “Which I find C-o-o-l, there isn’t a lot of stuff out there hidden enough that you won’t even FIND it on the auction. Wait, nevermind, here is something… behind a 2 Trillion US Dollar paywall though.”
“How much?” Lydia asked before John could get a heart attack. The princess seemed in physical pain at the thought of spending that much money on information.
“2 Trillion, here,” Rave repeated and then showed the screen to each of them in turn.
“That’s a fuckton of zeros,” Thana laughed.
“And something I will not pay for your little mystery and you won’t be able to muster anytime soon,” Lydia added. “Therefore, this has no hope of a result.”
“Okay, so, to gather what little we know,” John mumbled, “this is an old Mesopotamian artifact of probably extreme worth made by the king of Akkad himself. That puts it around 4000 years old…you think we could catch up to Luna and ask her if she knows something?”
“No, but even if you could prepare to pay more than monetary compensation,” Lydia said and crossed her arms - “If I may remind you, you are still indebted to me. Push this endeavour into a timeslot after our current business concludes.”
“Okay, okay,” John tried his best at a calming gesture, “I will, just curious.”
“Here is another idea,” Thana interrupted, “just smash it until it is completely fucking broken. I volunteer to see that through!”
“Thana, I know that this isn’t the greatest of things you want around you,” John said, “but you will have to put up with me on this, because I am way too curious to see what this turns out to be. You don’t have to like it, but you don’t get to break it either.” With that statement he put the Metracana away. Clearly, they wouldn’t make more progress on this today, and he didn’t want to have Thana even more worked up than she already was. The day had been stressful enough.
“Okay, can you answer some other questions for me then, Lydia?” John asked.
“Make it quick,” the princess said with a look at the clock.
“The whole city is an Illusion Barrier, so I can’t use Create I.D. here, how and or where do I leave the city? I don’t want to spawn out in the middle of some private property in Rome.” Leaving an Illusion Barrier in a place that did not exist in real space had interesting effects at times. He wouldn’t just appear in the air and start falling, Gaia assured that much, but beyond that he was best advised finding safe spots to leave.
“There are public exit points all over the city, this mansion has a private one in the garden. It can only be used as an entrance point if you have a key though, so don’t forget to take one with you.”
“Are dollars accepted in Abyssal Rome?”
“Every currency is.”
“Is there a dedicated trading district or something?”
“Yes, go to the third ring, the crafters have their homes there. I recommend staying on the west side: the quality is best there, the prices are the highest, though. If you are short on money, go to the northside. That district has seen better days, and they are desperate. The quality will suffer, however.”
“Great, would you object to me just going out to buy stuff?”
“Just don’t get stuck up in an interview, don’t tell anyone anything important or do something foolish,” Lydia demanded, and that was the end of that little question session. The princess moved over to her room and left the rest of the crew to the sound of the crappy romcom still running in the background.
“I’ll go get back to that,” Thana announced and jumped over the back of the couch.
“Ya wanna go buy stuff?” Rave asked.
“Yup, namely a new flight-capable object I can possess; with Spellcarrier around I can abuse a flight unit. I will probably go grind a bit afterwards, try to get to level 81. Want to come with?”
“Kinda, but I need to be around for when the furniture arrives. Do me the favour and don’t try any of the new kinds of dungeons, okay? I wanna be around when ya do that.”
John had more than enough targets for a first-clear bonus without tackling any of the new mechanics. “Sure, we will see each other when I get back then,” John said and left the house (after taking one of the keys that lay in the hallway), alone, a moment later. Not even Aclysia had the time to accompany him.
Of course, he was never truly alone.
“Hey, hey, hey John,” Sylph palavered, just appearing next to him as he walked. “What are you going to buy? Is it cool? Tell me it is cool! Like Pew-Pew cool, like your glove cool, like Undine’s attitude towards cold water cool, like the fact that I beat Salamander’s Mario Kart record cool.”
“Well,” John laughed when he found an opening to talk, “honestly, I am just looking for a new flight unit, so probably nothing that great. My money is kind of limited after all.” He strolled through the gardens until he found the frame of a gate just standing around the place. After using Observe to confirm what it was, he turned to leave the island.
He didn’t want to leave the Illusion Barrier, not yet at least, he just wanted to know where the exit was. No, first he would stroll over the market of Rome. When he reached the edge of the mana street, he quickly checked with his elementals. Save for Undine, who was soaking in the bathtub, everyone was around him. John didn’t know WHEN Siena had slipped back into his shadow, but the fact that she had was hardly surprising. After all, the nightmare elemental was a sneaky one.
‘Undine, could you come along?’ John inquired. A confused feeling, what would she need him for? ‘I feel uncomfortable going out without my healer,’ he explained. Hesitation, then a picture of Romulus. ‘Yes, I know we are under his protection during the tournament, but I don’t want to be unprepared. I can live with not having Aclysia around, Gnome can tank as well, but I need you.’
A conflicting mixture of happiness, annoyance and confusion. ‘Fine,’ Undine finally said and, by changing into incorporeal form, made her way over to him fairly quickly. It was one of the few advantages that being incorporeal had: they could move towards John at pretty high speeds. Same couldn’t be said for away from him, though.
“Yay, the elementals are going on a date with John, long overdue, long overdue, way too long overdue,” Sylph chirped and sat down on John’s shoulder.
“I would actually prefer if you were incorporeal, Sylph,” the Gamer told his wind spirit, gently taking her off his shoulders and having her stand on his palms as he spoke to her.
“What? But that’s so boring, I don’t want boring,” the mini tempest elemental complained, her long hair cascading through the air as she turned on her heels and pouted.
“Mhm, I understand, but I don’t want to reveal you to the enemy that easily, you are one of my bigger trump cards,” John said, but Sylph continued to pout.
“I can blow the enemy just fine if they are prepared, I am Sylph,” she turned to John with her wide smile- “Hey, hey, did you know that I am awesome? Because I am! You should give me cookies!”
“Should I? You will get fat, you cute, little fairy you,” John teased and tickled Sylph’s tummy with his thumbs.
“Hihihihi,” Sylph giggled, and for a few moments, John just continued doing that. Seeing the tempest elemental and her permanently good mood always lifted his spirit in one way or another. Sure, she was annoying at times, but which one of his girls was perfect? “How about this, you still have an allowance to spend;” John told her, “Gnome is the one who decides how it will be spent in the end, but with one hundred thousand dollars, you all should get something nice. I am sure you can convince her to get at least some cookies.”
“Yay, cookies, Gnome, Gnome, can we get cookies? With lots and lots and lots of chocolate?” Sylph asked.
‘Uhm, I am sure we can find something,’ Gnome agreed.
“Yay, okay, yay, yay, I will stay bodiless for this tour, but I demand a proper going out after you have fought the first time. You don’t have to hide us after that, right, right?”
“That sounds fair,” John agreed, and the tempest elemental disappeared, the smell of sweet flowers spreading from where she just had been.
John coughed, the smell was a bit too sweet and reminded him of that one time Frank, his bully back in Springfield, had sprayed deodorant in his face. ‘I should punch that guy in the face whenever I get back to Springfield,’ John thought. ‘If I ever… with mom no longer living there and me not planning to return to Ashcroft… there are really no reasons to go back there, are there?’
As a matter of fact, John had a few painful memories of that place that he would much rather avoid. The back alley that led, HAD led, into the old Arcade, the hospital that reminded him of Herman, the street where he had killed the Bloodfallen when they had attacked him.
Looking back at it, it still surprised him how little he had cared about the loss of human life. He hadn’t ever since he had gotten these powers. Neither the strangled bodies of the rockers nor the victims of Mana Ray had fazed him. ‘I don’t enjoy killing, but I sure am more indifferent towards death than I would have thought before all of this began.’
He stopped thinking about these dark things as the mana streets carried him down towards the city of Rome. He landed on the west side of the third circle, as Lydia had recommended him to.
The streets were packed. Pretty much every house along the main street was a shop of some description. The alleyways seemed to be reserved for restaurants or coffee shops. Weapons, armour, trinkets, poisons, potions, scrolls, books, magical conveniences and items were being appraised by interested buyers. Some people recognized him as he passed by, but none approached him. The crowd was as diverse as one would expect from the heart of a Europe spanning empire. The cosmopolitan atmosphere was universal, underpinned by a thick air of old traditions.
Whatever John might think of Romulus’ ambition to kill Gaia, he had to admit that the guy was not a bad ruler. If there was anything bad that could be said about him, it would be that he was disinterested in modern developments, but the foundation he had laid was well kept and sturdy.
John buried his hands deep in his pockets and walked deeper into the trade district, checking out shops occasionally as he went. His checks were ever only out of curiosity. Apparently, mechanical dolls, like the kind he wanted, were a bit of a niche market. Maybe he should have just bought another one on the auction after all? He had decided to go out and see if the real shops would offer some more extensive services, like the clothing shop for Aclysia had done. Well, here was hoping he wasn’t wrong.
‘John,’ Siena suddenly sighed into his inner ear, ‘I have some information you would like to know. I would be willing to give it to you for five minutes of freedom to kill you. Condition being that you fight against me on your own, how about it?’
‘That would need to be pretty great information,’ John answered, inspecting a sharp looking dagger.
‘Yet you are going to agree?’ Siena asked as if the end result of this conversation was only a matter of time.
‘Probably,’ he conceded; ‘I, however, wonder what you know, that I don’t, which you promise yourself will be more entertaining if you just tell me now.’
‘I believe neither of us will be interested in the outcome of this coming to fruition. There’re more entertaining ways to tease you.’
‘I’ll agree only if I am allowed to take one other person into our fight,’ John haggled.
‘That is satisfying, a deal is struck then.’ Siena took a dramatic pause and then purred, ‘You are being followed.’
